The Recollections of Fate - Pokemon
by Ak-Asche
Summary: Not everything in our world is pure and clean. Bad things happen nearly every day to unfortunate people and we often turn a blind eye to it all, even though this is reality. Ignorance is bliss, right? Is it bliss for those who lived it? This is the story of a young Ralts girl... and how her life was irreversibly changed by humans... (WARNING: Dark.)
1. Prologue 1: I Lived In A Forest

... You want to know more about me? What an INTERESTING question for a human to ask me. A trainer, no less...

... Indeed. You won't stop saying it... now that you know how very sentient I am...

... Who am I? That's a question I can't really answer by just saying my name. I mean sure. I can say my name. I can tell you what my age is. I can even tell you what type I am. Though, you don't really know me after that little bit of information. I'd have to tell you everything. So, is that okay with you? Are you willing to just sit with me, here, for a while? You don't gain anything by doing this. I'm not going to be one of your Pokemon afterwards...

...Yeah? ... Fine. I'll tell you my story. It's long, so it's gonna take me a while. Get comfortable. I'll stop and leave if you fall asleep, so pay attention.

My name has changed as many times as I have been through stages of my life. When all of what's important started, though- what defined me... I was just...

"Ralina~! Sweet heart~?" My mom was calling me. She was a Gardevoir. She has a name, but I only ever really called her, Mom or mommy. I was playing hide and seek, giggling to myself, cause of my great hiding place up in a big tree full of apples. I had picked a really big one, but it was too big to bite into with my small mouth. I was just a Ralts, after all. I think I was six-years-old coming on to seven. I was only a foot tall. I looked like I was wearing an over-sized gown that dragged under my feet. It was just part of my body, though. My skin, really. That might be weird to think about, being that you have a much different body.

My face was the same white color and red were my round eyes. I had bowl-cut hair with a red, flat horn in the front and in the back of my head. My arms were finger-less slender appendages. I had small, stubby legs. The apple was as big as my head and body. I guess now that I think about it, maybe I was just small. Small for a ralts, really...

I didn't call back to my mom at all. I just watched her tall, slender figure walk around in search of me. Though to be fair, I was only seeing the first seeker. As a white hand reaches out and places itself on my head, I yelp and flail, dropping my apple and clinging to the limb I sat on. "Who's there?!" I look around, but I didn't see anyone. After I calmed down, I sat back up and looked backward, meeting my big sister's gaze. She was a normal, every day Kirlia. However, to me, she was the only Kirlia. Every other Kirlia just wasn't related to me. Not my family. Though, like me, her name wasn't her species name. It was Kimmy, but I always used, Sis.

My sister giggled at me with a kind smile, rubbing her hand embarrassingly on the side of my head. "Sis. You're way too jumpy. There's just us and no one else." And then she grinned to me, snickering. "Oh and your 'it'."

"Indeed, Kimmy!" came a deeper, more mature woman's voice. Mom's voice! I spun back around and saw her reaching for us both... and remembered just how big Mom was. She was super tall compared to us! Even my sister was small at 2'7" feet tall. My mommy was above average height for a Gardevoir. She was 6'7 feet tall, where as any other Gardevoir was 5'3"! A big difference! "Now lets get you both down~. I don't think trees were supposed to be a hiding place." She picked me up, right off the branch with a single, three digit hand with sharp fingers. Not that sort of sharp, but they were pointy. She grabbed Sis around the waist to get her. Sis was ticklish there so she giggled.

Moments after we were lowered down from the tree, we were put down on the ground to reintroduce our legs to the cool and soft grass. Mommy righted herself with her hands on her hips and a smiling glance down at me. I knew that look~... "Alright, Ralina. Your 'it' this time. Now you have to find us, again." She crouched down to me and fixed it so that I was facing the tree I was caught in. "Now. Head against the tree, eyes closed and start to count to one-hundred." And that's exactly what I did.

I started to count against the tree with my eyes shut tight. Maybe tighter than was needed. "1..2..3-"

"Don't peek~!", came Sis's already distant voice as they both ran to hide somewhere in the forest.

I kept counting, face a little red from my sister treating me like a kid... which at the time, was accurate, I guess. "..4..5..6.." I was already further along in the number education than kids my age from any human race out there. Heck, I was probably smarter than some pokemon outside my own pokemon race. We of the "feeling" pokemon race aren't just highly tuned to people's feelings and true intentions. We are also highly intelligent, even without proper learning. We learn almost instinctively as we age... A little side note. Back then, I was different. I couldn't directly feel anything from other pokemon or people, yet. Just vague stuff that came directly from Mom and Kimmy.

Mom might have been big and tall, but she probably also had an IQ of over 300... She just didn't use it a lot when we came along. I guess smarts weren't as important to her as family. I admit, that makes me smile thinking that way. "94..95..96..97..98..99..100!" I took my head off the tree and opened my eyes, whirling around and shouted out to the whole forest around me. "Ready or not, here I come~!"

And so I started running. Doesn't seem like us Ralts' can run fast, does it? Looks are deceiving, because we are fast as all get-out. Speeding by trees, I kept an eye out for any signs of mom or Kimmy. I was really looking for pieces of their "dresses".

Looking all over the place while I sped passed a lot of the forest, I blinked when I thought I saw a white piece of cloth. I stopped and backed up slowly to where I had spotted it, careful not to make noise like I had while I was running. The "cloth" was protruding out the bottom of a big bush. I smirked to myself and went around to the back. I could already see Sis through the back of the bush, watching for me. What helped me know it was her was her green pigtails.

...You seem confused. Is it about the hair? Yeah. Our's is real hair, too. NOT a helmet or something stupid like that. How would that work for a KIRLIA, specifically? Either way, I guess you guys just never took the time and watched it grow.

Anyways. I only had to tag her. That's all. Just a quick tap on the shoulder...but there was a problem. I was too small to just reach inside. My arms weren't long enough, even if they were my longest limbs. I'd have to do this quick...

I shot into the bush and squirmed my way to my sister, just as she realized she wasn't alone, letting out and shriek. It was too late to run! I tagged her right on the forehead while I huffed and puffed, a little worn out from squirming so hard in the bush. "*huff* Tag!... *puff* Your out- I mean... *huff* it! ... *haff*" I then grinned cheekily when I thought about how she shrieked even louder than me when she found me back there. "So, I'm *puff* .. the jumpy one?"

She sat there, surprised and a little shaky. Then she pouted, blushing a deep red. "Oh quiet! You didn't scare me! I was just... Testing my lungs, you took so long!"

I snorted at that and hopped out of the bush, hair messy with leaves. I dusted the leaves out of my hair while I spoke. "Yeah, sure, big sis. That totally wasn't out of fright. I soooo believe you~." When I fixed my hair and she came out, fixing her own messy hair, I pointed at her. "By the way, your still shaking, Miss Lung Tester." She gaped at the mouth, blushing even more, then let out and frustrated, "Ooooh!", shutting her eyes and flailing her fists! "Yeah, just remember who scared who first!"

I giggled. "Are you admitting something here?" Yes. I was being smart with her. I couldn't help it! It was so fun messing with her!

She folded her arms and made a, "hmph", looking away and saying, "I WILL get you back for this! Mark my words, little sister!" After she said the "will get you back for this" part, I had already bolted off. I heard the rest though~. I always wondered which of us was REALLY the older sister~.

To be fair, finding my mom would not be anywhere as easy as my sister was to find. She had picked a great hiding place and one other detail had been taken care of.

I couldn't find hair nor dress or leg of my mom for the longest time. So long that I was out of breath and huffing again. There was a chance that she was using my strategy from earlier and hiding up in a tree, but she was too big. Right? Either way, it wasn't that. She was not just hiding. She was SUPER hiding. The terrain had turned misty with fog and I couldn't really see much. It was one of mom's moves. Misty Terrain.

However, that worked to my advantage, because the affect area had to be where she was. I smiled open-mouthedly while I was catching my breath and sweating. "I know *huff* ... your *haff*.. here mom~!" She wasn't going to speak, but I heard something move to my right. I used teleport to warp into a flash of pink light and out again behind which tree I thought she was behind and there she was!

She gasped and tried to run away, but I teleported again, this time right onto her shoulders as I tapped her head. "Tag!" She stopped running, almost falling over, but balancing us both. She huffs and bows her head, snapping her fingers and muttering, "Oh, shoot!"

She then looks back to me and smiles, proud. "You're getting used to your teleport move, I see, Ralina. Wish I hadn't trained mine away now. If I hadn't, there's no way you could have gotten me." She sighs and then takes me in a hand underneath me and brings me around to her front. "How about we call it a day for hide and seek? You must be getting hungry with that little body of your's all tuckered out like this."

I was going to object, but my stomach growled before I could even mutter a word. -Tchuuurr...- I bit my lip and blushed, feeling my stomach tighten a little. Mom saw that and giggled lightly. She pursed her lips and kissed me on the cheek. "Don't go on just food for thought, little one~. You have to remain healthy. Remember that."

She put me hanging onto her shoulder while she looked around to make sure no one was looking. Smiling over to me, she asked, "Hey, Ralina-baby? Can you teleport us to your sister? We can't leave her out here after all~." Nodding, I did as she asked, summoning up one last teleport as we were sent through time and space, ending up right in front of Kimmy, where it made us reappear.

Sis ended up shrieking from fright again, flailing and falling over, shivering. Mom giggled with me on this one, then picked poor Kimmy up, carrying her like a baby. She pouts and blushes up again. "You guys are SO getting some payback. BOTH of you. I don't care who's the mommy around here."

To that, mommy shushed her with a head rub, making Sis relax back in her arms and smile, pleasantly. I have... no idea why that relaxed her. "Now now~. No need to get mean about this, right?" She then started to walk through the woods, to our home. Most pokemon didn't really have a proper home unless they were caught by a trainer or raised by humans, so I guess I should call home our favorite spot in the forest. Hands or not, brain or no brain, pokemon don't really need much in the way of shelters. We're a lot more resilient than humans, anyway.

Our favorite spot was a pecha tree grove. The grass was a light teal with dew coating every blade. The trees were big and healthy and grew the most luscious berries I'd ever tasted. The air here was especially clean with the scent of pecha in the air. A small pond flowing gently swirling and moving in and out toward a nearby river rested in a corner, shaped like a liver.

This was my home...

 _ **Just to make certain no one wonders why the very same story is both here and on Deviantart, I am the same person who originally wrote the story. Jenna4President.**_

 _ **This name doesn't mean anything toward my gender. As always, that's just an alias. Same as Ak-Asche. Take no gender from it, even though it's obviously female. After all, if we're being honest, Ak-Asche sounds male.**_

 _ **As I don't like the writing system it uses, I've moved this fanfiction here. Reasons vary, but a big reason is the use of symbol activated bold, italics and other such things. Honestly, I wish every site used a system like this, but maybe I don't understand something.**_

 _ **Regardless, I wanted to make it clear that this is indeed my story. I didn't steal it. I can even message anyone who wants proof from the aforementioned Deviantart account.**_

 _ **I hope you all enjoy this story, regardless. ^^ It's by far one of my favorite things I'm currently writing.**_


	2. Prologue 2: Are We Different? How?

At night, we had all decided to sleep. You humans have your comfy, fluffy beds to sleep on, yes. However, we had something comfy on a different level, me and Kimmy. The grass. It was so soft in this forest. Feather soft. Usually, in places me, mom and sis have lived before, the grass would poke and pinch. That's why we like this forest, in contrary to sleeping out in open fields. Flower places were good too, but that was something only I knew.

I haven't told anyone but late one night, when I was 3, I snuck away from home and went to a human's house just outside of a forest I used to live in. Not my forest, of course. I stayed there for a long time. While there, this nice boy gave me these odd knots of food. They were delicious, but I had tasted what they were supposed to be before. Blukberry. They had this filling and when I bit into one, it would make a mess of my hands, because I tried to eat too fast. You could say it "backfired." I laughed at myself until I had tears in my eyes. I even fell over.

Me and the boy stayed up to outrageous times in the night, just playing around. Neither of us could understand a WORD of what the other was saying, but eventually, we found a way around it with weird gestures. Those became a game very quick. We'd go on, trying to guess what the other was saying. It worked... most of the time. Before too long, we fell asleep, resting in the flower bed behind his house. It was the best sleep I'd ever gotten in my life, though it was also the shortest, because about an hour or two after, his mom came and took him away, back into the house, but not before giggling at me and smiling. I didn't understand at the time, but she wasn't laughing at me. It still made me go full pout mode and hightail it to the forest again.

That day was one of the best days of my life. Though, I never did see that boy again after that. I did try to go back during lunch one day, but we had to move on. I didn't want to get separated from mom, so of course I gave in. We would look for our new home for a month, which led us over streams, through a small cleared-out pass... it's hard to list out every last place went by as we kept on moving. It's easier to say the things we DIDN'T pass by. Human homes.

By the time we had found this place, though, I had never felt so relieved to be liking in one place again. I was just so tired and emotionally drained. It took about a month to even get there. That long, long month that spanned for what felt like half a year. Some tell you that a journey goes by fast if you never stop. That it's over in the blink of an eye. Don't believe them. It's not always so uncomplicated and it wasn't smooth sailing. But, that is ancient history. And it's not the story I want to tell.

Getting back to the point in my story we were focused on, I woke up first, opening my eyes to my hair being in them. Moving it with a hand, I swept the right side away from one, blinking sleepily. "Stupid hair. Wish there was a pokemon with razor leaf around. It's get-" Suddenly... -tack!- a stray nut or rock or something smacked the back of my head, which made me shriek let my hair fall back in my eyes as I spun into a quick sat-up position. I started looking around, right in time to get hit by another one of those... things. I growled, annoyed, looking at who it came from. It was an Aipom that had been doing it. "Butt-face! Stop throwing nuts at my head!"

The Aipom snickered at me and with it's tail hand, it threw another nut at me, harder, which hit me on the shin. I shrieked again and fell over, rubbing my shin as it stung like needles. The guy hit me in the funny bone if things weren't bad enough! I hissed and squirmed while he laughed his head off at me.

That's when he woke up Kimmy, who sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Ralina, shud-aaap~. I'm still- eh?" She spots the Aipom the second one of her hands moved. She looks around at the scene that was playing out, then looks back at the Aipom, who throws another nut at me, missing me this time, though. Sis narrows her eyes at the Aipom and looks at the nuts around me that had been used to hit me all over. She uses Psychic to levitate them from the grass, over to her.

"Hurt MY little sister? Sorry, but she's not your enterTAINMENT!" She let the nuts shoot out at the Aipom as most found their way to the chimp idiot, who jumps at that and tries to shield himself, but falls from the tree, screeching only to be grabbed by another Psychic that draws him in, right to Kimmy. She glares at him, as he seemed to turn pale.

He stutters out. "C-can't you take a j-joke?! Oh oh!" And then that monkey "became a wingull", flying into the sky as it shrieked loudly. We wouldn't ever have to worry about that guy again.

Getting up and dusting myself off, I felt absolutely terrible. First I got picked on by a monkey pokemon, being hit by nuts multiple times without even being able to defend against THAT. Then, my sister had to bail me out, all because I couldn't do it myself. I just stood there, defeated and floored at how terrible my battle skills were... "You and mom..."

My sister blinks, remember I was there as she looked my way. "Ralina, are you okay?!" She ran over and crouched down in front of me, probably so I wouldn't feel small, placing her hands on my arms. "That doofus didn't hurt you did he?!"

All I did for about a minute was think my next words out carefully and back away, shaking her hands off me. "Don't even...! ... The both of you are strong with your mind powers and cool abilities... All I can do so far is teleport and get beat on if something actually knows how to fight..."

Kimmy was left wordless, eyes wide with surprise and shock, mouth hanging open. She didn't find words until seconds later when I was about to go on. "That's not true! You just haven't-"

"Gotten old enough yet? You learned Confusion quick, didn't you?" I took a step away, hiding what was dribbling down my face.. tears... "...Learned to use Confuse Ray on your first birthday. You told me... And mom said she learned to use that Misty Terrain thing way before either of us were born... I didn't ever learn anything special... Just teleport... That can't be used to fight back!"

Kimmy, feeling sorta ashamed, couldn't bring herself to look me in the eye anymore... {So why am I still here?}, I decided to ask myself. I was seconds away from turning and running... but... my legs wouldn't move... I was conflicted. I loved my family,... but at the time I thought surely that they were expecting someone better than me for a daughter or sister. I was so very naive back then. I never knew what I had. All I knew was that I was the weakest of all and it infuriated me to no end. "I'm weak, no matter how smart I am. You two can fight and I just-"

"Enough!", came mom's voice as she stood up, away from the tree, eyes opening up. She had been faking being asleep through most of that to listen to us, I guess... She looked at me and walked over, hands grasping each other. Sitting down on her feet, she sat in front of me and I knew she didn't approve of how I was acting. I could feel it in her eyes... She stares softly down at my tear-ridden face and sighs. "Is this how you have truly been feeling Ralina? Like your weak...?"

I frowned, refusing to look up at my mom, too much shame wracking me, if my shivering and sniveling wasn't enough to tell you how I felt. "Yes..."

Mom frowned, taking a hand and stretching it out to my head to rub a cheek while she spoke. "Darling... do you think fighting is the only strength in this world...? There is so much more power to have than with physical strength alone. You haven't noticed, but you've already shown it many times before."

I used a hand to dry away my tears. "And whats that? That I can run away? I already know I'm the second quickest of us."

"No, Ralina. I told you. It's not physical." She smiled and took her hand away, pointing a finger to her forehead.

Kimmy oh-ed and grinned. "Yeah! We're all really smart. Smarter than the average pokemon!" She hopped over to me, a bit crowding now that she wasn't kneeling, then she bent over toward me as she got right in my face. She then pointed at her head with both hands. "Use your head enough and you can come up with something better than any attack or move someone might try! Get it?!"

My sister... was so hard to read. I could never figure out if she was bratty or crazy... or smart. However, she was right. Smiling with a hidden-by-hair thankfulness in my eyes, I nodded. "...Yeah. Okay... Thanks, Mom, Sis. You two are the best."

I ended up eating a bunch of Pecha Berries off the tree that morning. I remember my sister asking me where I was packing all of it away, cause the portion size was outrageous since I was so little. I didn't know either, so I didn't answer. I just felt so much better after that teary moment that any amount of stuffing myself was probably invisible to me.

After me and sis got done with our berries, she would chew her last bite with me, looking at me through one eye while she smiled. I could tell we were about to be in for something interesting, then. I giggled a bit, then swallowed and going up to mom, who admittedly looked a little distracted by her meal, but I'm sure she just bit into a bad berry. "Hey, mommy?" Mom looked up from her berry in hand and hummed, turning her head to me. "Yes, Dear? What is it?"

Smiling at my own mother's polite and usual tone, I spoke up. "Can me and Sis go playing for a while? We're done eating~." My sister opened her mouth behind me to even show that she wasn't hiding any bits of berry in her mouth corners.

Mom just smiled and nodded to us both regardless of whether she saw empty mouths. "Sure~. Mommy needs to attend to certain things, anyway. It'll give her time to focus, so you two go right o-"

"Thanks mom!" Shouted Kimmy over mom's last few words, then we eagerly sprinted away, leaving mom with wide eyes and a crooked and nervous smile.

Let me try to guess this part, since I don't actually know if she did this or not. She sighs and smirks to herself, closing her eyes and sitting on a flat rock next to the pond. "Those two. What cards~. But truly, do they think I don't know what goes on in their heads?"


	3. Prologue 3: We Found A Secret Place!

We had just gotten into a deeper part of the forest by the time we decided to actually stop and think of what we were going to do. Kimmy ohs as she gets an idea. "You and me, Ralina! I wanna see if you really were right about who's faster, so lets have a race!

I turned back around to her, confused, brushing my hair from my eyes and holding it up with my hands. "A race? I don't know. We don't really know this side of the forest well enough yet. What if we run into a section we don't-"

"Torchic~."

I blinked at her interruption, confused with a cocked brow. "What?" She then got up to me and nearly poked me in the forehead, my eyes growing wide. She smirked big and tauntingly with narrowed red eyes. "Torrrrchic-chic-chic! Torchic! What? Scared you might be wrong and I might beat your butt?"

I just stared at her after I let my hair drop back down over my eyes, mouth agape slightly. Then I narrowed a glare at her. "Scared? My sister sure is confident~. Alright, fine! Race to..." I urked as I looked around, thinking of what might stand out. There was a tree with a green trunk way 300 feet in front of us. It had oddly colored blue leaves. I hadn't noticed though, that it wasn't the only one. I pointed to that tree alone, pulling my sister in closer by the arm so she could see what I was talking about. "To that green trunk-ed tree over there! it's a 300 foot race! We give it all our feet can!"

She smirks and makes a curtsy. "Alright, then." She then gets down with one foot ahead of the other ready to push off with the other foot steadying her. Her arms were out like a bird and on the ground to keep her up right. "On my mark!"

I got in a similar standing pose, but instead of me steadying myself upright with my arms, I held one arm bent in front of my face and the other back and out, which made most of my arm weight hold me still.

"Set... Go!" Both of us started off in full sprint. Despite my sister's legs being longer than my own, mine were swifter and lighter, as well as the rest of my body, helping me keep her behind me. However it wasn't what made her lose.

I giggled to myself, looking around as I saw I'd totally left her... but wait, she stopped? I slide to a stop, turning around and shouting to sis, who seemed to be staring off into the air. "Hey! Why did you stop?! Are you giving up?" She didn't react. Didn't even respond. Swiveling my lips, I considered she might be trying to trick me, but then she would have taken off when I stopped. I jogged back over to her, confused as I asked, "Sis, what's wrong? What's gotten into you?" She pulled me into her arms without warning as I yelped, flailing! "Hey! What th-" My sister's white hand flew over my mouth as I looked around in a panic, then shut up when I noticed what she was looking at in awe about, gawking myself when I realized the weirdest thing about the trees in front of us.

As they went along, their leaves and trunk became gradually similar to the tree I'd seen before. Green trunks with blue leaves. If I looked a little more carefully, I could see something other than leaves hanging from even further on trees' branches and barks... Whatever that was seemed to be glittering and shining with the sun. I couldn't see what they were from here though... Finally my sister let go of my mouth and put me down, seeming very curious. "What is this place? I don't think we ever found this spot in the forest before."

I shook my my head my head. I was still pretty young back then, so I didn't know whether I could answer, I thought, at first. Then I thought, I was born before we came here, to this forest, so why, in the days we've spent here, have I never seen this? Shouldn't this have stuck out? I knew there were still places in that forest that we hadn't known of yet, but in a place like this, what glitters in trees without rain for a week? What tree grows something so shiny, anyway?

I should have been asking all that aloud that day, but I was just so entranced by the view that I didn't think to speak. However, my sister thought to walk further into this new-found place. You'd think that then was the moment I'd have piped up and said we "shouldn't go places we don't already know about",... but to be honest... I was curious too.

I walked along and caught up with her, following her closely so that we wouldn't lose each other.

As we got deeper into that part of the forest, the crystals that were in and on the trees started to seem more like a part of the trees. Some grass even seemed to be crystallized completely. It would subtly get more and more common as we walked along until we started to see a change in the hue of light around us. One beam of light even blinded me for moments, making me groan and cover my eyes as I closed them tight, rubbing at the lids while I blindly walked with sis, only to trip over her foot, yelping.

Crish! ...An unfamiliar sound of crushing... something... Opening my eyes, I realized there was something grainy, but shiny flouting along in front of me. Looking around, I saw the crystal grass, but in this place more plentiful, crushed from under my body. I expected a lot of splinters to be in my skin, sitting up and dusting blue, shiny dust from my torso, I realized that there were no pricks in my skin or stuck pines from broken glassy grass. ...Then I looked around more... And what I saw was the most beautiful thing my eyes ever saw. Some fear may have been there too.

Everything in this portion of the forest seemed to somehow have been turned to this blue crystalline form. The trees were frozen in the crystal, leaves and all. Pollen had even crystallized, falls softly in this glistening shower of lights from the sun, dying this place blue and us along with it. The grass had turned to this almost frosted form, which was the source of that crunching under our feet. You'd think that it would poke us in the foot, but it just broke down into bits too small to do it, some even going off into the air.

The only thing that hadn't turned to crystal was the water from the stream. I guess if the water could be crystallized like all this had, there would be a lot of dehydration around. Though the case was not present. Even though it wasn't crystallized, there were blue gems and flakes in it here and there. I guess you can't keep water surrounded by crystals clean if the crystals are as fragile as the ones the grass made.

Looking at all this made me feel like I had reached a contempt serenity; like I could die here and I would be happy. Too bad, because this wasn't my home. Looking back on this spectacle though, I realize that I would not see it the same way if I was always around it. I'd get bored or used of it, so I guess that it's a good thing I never stayed.

As I stood there in awe, I just could get over the fact that I just never saw this place before now. Where had I been? "Living under a rock", is a phrase that could accurately fit that question. Walking through the fragile ice-like grass, I looked around while my sister followed, almost tripping over my own feet a few times, just because all of this was so overwhelmingly gorgeous.

Sis herself seemed to be as entranced as I was, thoroughly hypnotized by the beautiful blue crystal pollen in the air. She'd reach out a hand to catch some, but the second the pollen crystals touched her hand, it would crumble away and puff away in a soft shimmering set of twinkles.

"You trespass on my home, where I have finally settled in after such greedy huntings." A voice that seemed to come from everywhere suddenly broke our awe. We panicked and looked around for the source, but the source was everywhere!

After a moment, I started to sweat from thinking I had done something wrong. I was scared and shaking was how one could tell. "Wh-who are you? ... Where are you?"

My sister urked with wide, worried eyes on me and covered my mouth, shushing me. "Don't call it out!", she whispered loudly, then went on to say, "We don't know who or what that was!"

"...Children?", the voice asked, then quiet ensued...

My eyes darted around under my hair, but I couldn't see anything. They may have been somewhere my hair was blocking me from seeing, but I wasn't thinking straight enough to take my hair out of my eyes. I did, however, wrench my way out of my sister's arms by twisting and stepping away, gasping air in. Then I threw a glare at my overcautious sister, finally breaking the silence. "I need to breathe, you know! Don't do that again!"

My sister yelped and shushed me again, crouching a little so she was even with me as she flailed her hands in front of her. "Don't yell! It might get mad- I'm sorry!"

"Why can't I talk?!"

"Because!"

"Cause why?!"

"You might make it angry, whatever it is~...!"

While we yammered on and argued louder and louder, a set of dark-blue sclera'd, big, blue eyes shifted back and forth between me and my sister from a shadowy figure behind a crystallized tree. When we finally started to get way too loud, the shadowy figure came out, floating over on side of both of us, eyes confused. "Excuse me, but..." It spoke with the same girl's voice that surrounded us mere moments ago, but softer and quieter.

We both froze, eyes wide as we slowly turned to the figure that had approached us. When we saw it, we both jumped a little, yelping like we had been pinched!

The figure had a gray, sylph-like upper body with a white chest and arms resembling a white dress, which had a frilly bottom. The white dress-sleeve like arms led out to small, gray two fingered hands- a hand comprised of a small palm flattish wide upper digit and a smaller, shorter, rounded bottom digit, comparable to a thumb. Around it's neck tethered to a thick, unbending golden collar was a large blue jewel nearly as big as it's chest. Nearly. It had a small neck that supported a big, round, gray head with large, ovular, blue eyes with very dark blue schlera. It had a small mouth that currently sat in a concerned frown and two cute ears shaped almost like a miltank's.

On it's head sat several blue crystals on a nearly covered up, golden head dress, larger than the necklace crystal. The head dress itself was only really visible in the front of the creature's head. The four crystals in the back of it's head were shaped like the necklace crystal but were almost a third larger. Behind it's ears dangled two long versions of the prior crystals, almost as if they were ear rings, but they were obviously just connected to the head dress by gold chains. The crystal that sat on it's forehead was diamond-cut in shape, just as large as the ones in back. You could have said all these head ornaments were meant to be hair for this creature.

The large bottom half of it's body... was basically a rock as shapely as any boulder, but to be fair, it FAINTLY resembled the most common shape among it's crystals. Equilateral. Of which, in all of that rocky under-body, there hid a giant crystal. How did I know that? There was a gaping, messy hole in the side of that part of her body. Don't worry. It wasn't bleeding. It was just basically a viewpoint hole.

The creature that floats before... wasn't a pokemon I was familiar with and I knew a lot of pokemon from our journey for a home. What this creature was had to be a pokemon, though. There was no mistake to be made there, what with the unreal physical body that seemed almost too bizarre to be real. A blue crystal encrusted pokemon with fae-like appearance and a rock-skinned body. It was likely a fairy type, like me, which made me feel unnerved, but it had to be related to rock in some way, as well. It was a female, though. I could tell from the voice and how it carried itself.

I was too curious. I stepped forward, much to my sister's panic as she shook her head. Before she could object, my mouth made the words in my head heard. "Your the voice we just heard, right?" In defeat, my sister let her head limply droop down while she quietly muttered, "doomed~."

The creature nodded cautiously. floating a little closer as she placed a hand on her necklace's crystal and bowed a little, but kept her eyes fixed on us. "I am." She then floated down to our level, having to wedge her lower rock body into the dirt and crystallized grass. "Before I say my name, who are you and what brings children to my home?"

My sister calmed down, straightening up, nervously as she made a slight swivel with her lips. She stepped up to the pokemon, keeping both eyes fixed on her and her alone. "W-we saw crystals all over the place back the way we came in, so we decided to follow them, cause they were pretty. We'd been in this forest a long time, but this is the first time we've seen things like this." She looked around herself at her surroundings, which refracted light from blue crystals being everywhere had dyed the same color. "This place is gorgeous, but it feels like we've stepped into a new world... It's a little nerve-wracking."

The pokemon paused for a moment, possibly testing my sister's words to see if she got a reaction that fit her current mode of nervousness. My sister started to sweat from this, curling her brows up and turtling her head. She was still a little afraid that the pokemon might attack. "W-w-what? Did I say something weird?"

The crystal encrusted pokemon shakes her head to my sister and smiles a little, her eyes softening. "No. I believe you, even if your a little strange."

I made a blank face... then pouted, along with my sister. Getting a little too close, we both responded with, "Hey! I'm not strange!", which made the pokemon panic and do something I didn't see coming, putting her hands up.

Crystals formed in front of her, clear and blue, separating us from her. Both of us looked awe-struck. "Whoa..." We had said that almost in unison. That made the pokemon blink as she floated over the crystals. "Sorry..."

Putting two and two together, I looked around again and realized that all of this was a creation of whatever the pokemon-we-were-talking-to's power. Turning back to her, I got closer. I was almost close enough to reach out and touch her before long, looking up into her eyes. This is also where I blushed and huffed, because I had also realized she was bigger than me by a whole foot and some odd inches, which was probably more than twice my size. I was the smallest, where I had hoped she was my size and I had deluded myself that I had been looking up cause she was still floating.

She grew nervous again, frowning down at me. "What? I didn't mean to form those. Did they hurt you? I'm so-"

"No, no no~!" I sighed a groan, turning a quick fifty degrees left and folded my arms together, so I didn't have to show my face up front. I wasn't happy, but it was for the reason you probably guessed. "I am fine, just.. a little... Tired of being the smallest pokemon around here. That's all."

My sister blinked, because she could see the puffing pout in my cheeks. She snickered and looked at the pokemon. "Don't worry about her. She's just sensitive about her shorty-ness."

Before any laugh from the pokemon could come, I looked back to her quick with a forcefully calmed expression belying irritation. "Anyway!" I shouted to erase the giggles and bring everyone "into the real world" again as they stared at me with wide eyes. Didn't last too long. "I guess that you did all of this. Made all of this stuff here, I mean. You just made crystals and everything around us looks like it's been either merged with or made into your blue crystals. Sooo, two and two."

The pokemon, nods, simply. "Correct, I am the only one who can make these, at least in this color. I am a Diancie. However, no other Diancie that I know of has blue crystals. Most have pink."

I turned back to her completely while I took that in, meeting her blue eyes. I had never even heard of a Diancie, but from how she said it, she would not be the last I would ever see. She was indeed the only one I would see that looked like this, though. "Diancie... I have never heard of your kind before." Looking over her more thoroughly, I tried to record everything that she was in my mind. That was how I was able to describe her to you so accurately. I have a photographic memory, if you haven't noticed. Though, I guess that mine is more... animated than most.

She went on to ask again, "What are your names?"

Both me and my sister made an, "oh", sound and smiled at the Diancie. I went first, but I lifted my hair out of my eyed before I said anything. "My name is Ralina. I'm a Ralts." Then my sister went, doing another one of her curtsies and bowing her head a bit. This time she wasn't afraid of the Diancie. "I am Kimmy and I am a Kirlia."

"Ralina... Kimmy...", the Diancie would repeat to herself, then smile. "I see. So, you're both of the Gardevoir and Gallade lines."

Both of us looked at each other, standing casual, but we knew the Diancie was wrong on one part. We looked at her and said, in unison, "Just Gardevoir."

The Diancie blinked with a swiveled lip. "...Pardon? Just Gardevoir? What do you mean? A Kirlia can evolve into-"

"Either, right?" Kimmy smiled and shook her head, humbly. "Not us. We can't become Gallades because we don't have the right stuff. Not just because we're not boys, either..."

She would go on to explain the whole reason why. This is going to take a while. Do you need something to drink? ... No? Eat? ... Well okay. Then, I'll try to remember everything she said word for word, but in some parts of her speech, I nodded off. Sorry if this isn't very accurate.

Here goes. "We aren't the right... How did mom say it? ... Generation. Normal ralts and kirlia have the ability to turn into either one of the two evolutionary parents of our line, but we come from the other spectrum of that, because our side of the gardevoir line population didn't have Gallades at any point in it's time and it's just been a few years since there were even Kirlias able to turn into a Gallade at second evolution. They didn't exist before that. Because our part of the population didn't have a single Gallade or a Kirlia that had been born with a trait that enabled it- not even a female one that could just carry the compatibility down into another, we were never able to get whatever it was that the other side of the population had. The ones that made us and our generation of Ralts, Kirlia and Gardevoir were never exposed to whatever it was that brought the Gallades into the evolutionary lines. What that is or was, we can only guess at. We know of Gallades, but we just have never been able to make one. Mom says that our chemistries would need to have intermingled with the right type of pokemon. Her theory is that it was a pokemon who evolved with a dawn stone, just like how a Gallade is made when A kirlia touches one. Maybe it was a Togekiss? ...No, wait. Wrong Egg group... ... ... Uh?"

After that long explanation, she found me dozing off on side of her with the Diancie giggling at me. She narrowed her eyes and flicked me on the head, which made me squeal and rub at the red mark it made. "OW!" She humphed and closed her eyes with a smirk in her lips and crossed her arms, saying, "But! That's okay. I don't want to have a blade coming out of my head or look like some weirdo with a disc for hips, anyway. I wouldn't be able to show my face to my mother and sister ever again!"

The Diancie nodded as she seemed to understand all of what Kimmy said. I knew all of it so there was no surprise to be had. The Diancie then smiles a bit. "Well, I think that was more than enough from you two." She plants her rock bottom tip in the ground and bows proper-like- it must be how she was raised that made her so proper. "My name is Mallory. I am the singular blue Diancie."

I chuckled at the repeated species name, but smiled at her pretty actual name. "It's nice to meet you, Mallory~." My sister shouted, "Ditto!"

Mallory giggled, a little blue in her cheeks now. "Likewise."

The three of us became fast friends, even though later we found out she was much older than us. How old? Well, you are another girl, I guess. She was 40 years old. That's not much for her species, but I'm sure you guessed that as we later found out her typing. Fairy and Rock. Rock-types have a long life along with their brother type, steel. Some fairy types do, as well. Take that how you will. I might live a lot longer than you, yes, but Mallory will live 1000 years from then and beyond. By her standards, she is still a kid. A super smart kid, but still. Not only that, but she and her kind evolved from Carbinks, then somewhere along the line, that evolution became solitary from Diancie. I've never seen a Carbink, but she told us as much.

This wasn't all we learned from her. Her abilities related to crystal creation were linked to carbon. If there was carbon to be had, something necessarily everywhere, she could make crystals like the ones she had endlessly, if given enough time. I did notice that she sort of shrunk back behind them anytime she felt nervous. Reclusive is what she was. The thing I didn't know, yet, was why.

"And I smacked the Aipom with his own throwables! I swear, I think he wet himself when I grabbed him with my psychic and threw him into the sky!" My sister was telling Mallory about the Aipom that was picking on me. Looking away from them, I looked back at the crystals Mallory had created earlier. It just kept bugging me. What made Mallory react so shyly and nervously around us when we raised our voices or even approached her the wrong way? I had to know. Turning my head back to Mallory, I spoke up with questioning eyes. "Hey. Mallory?"

She blinked from my sister's story, looking at me with concern. "Is something wrong, Ralina?"

Shaking my head, I replied with, "No. Nothing at all. I just... Can I ask you about something?"

Mallory nodded to me, clearing her throat as if it were parched. And so, I asked the question. A pause enveloped us all as my sister stopped her story and looked at me, confused. "Kinda intrusive, don't you think, little sis?"

"No, this-..." Mallory stopped, almost trying to hide her eyes while she paused and thought about it. When she looked at me again, there was a seriousness to them. Those blue orbs were frightened underneath and there was this vibe about Mallory's tone that startled a shift from me when I had been sitting. "This shouldn't be something I keep to myself, as it won't help those who don't already know about what I've been through..."

And there it was. The thing that had been keeping her frightened for all this time. That mental scar. She went on to tell us what I'm trusting you will understand, so pay attention. This is what she told us.

"You Both have seen my crystals are all blue, a color never seen in Diancie, rare breed or no." She held her hands to her necklace crystal, almost looking as if she didn't want it hanging there with how shaky her hands were. "A color not gained naturally, but forced upon me."

This fact made me and my sister listen even more, looking at each other with concern in our eyes, before looking back to our Diancie friend.

She went on. "I am modified. Modified by humans and their sciences. Humans made me the color I am today by attempting to mix my genetics together with a substance they made. It was injected into me through the back of my head." She turned around and showed us a tiny puncture scar crevice in the spinal part of her head. The amount of force needed for whatever went into that mark must have been tremendous. Rock skin is difficult to break through, but the insertion was mostly clean. It was done with precision and carefully executed.

I felt uneasy looking at it, sweat dripping down my brow... I'm sure my sister had a reaction on the same magnitude, but at the time, I didn't ever look away for a second from the scar, so I never saw what face she made or what reaction. I know my sister though. She was a bit squeamish...

Mallory turned back with eyes that were closed and a blank expression on her lips. "They then made me create a crystal... while I was still adjusting to the serum. I couldn't stop myself, not because I was no longer in control, but because if I did, I would have exploded..." She opened her eyes, looking at me in particular or some spot behind me with an almost perplexed expression that settled soon after into a telling look. "The serum had an odd reaction inside of me that made my entire body feel like it was going to shatter, unless I found some way to relieve even the slightest pressure... So I formed a crystal to expel unwanted energy... The crystal that I formed was mostly pink with blue staining on a side and what looked like a vain outreaching inside it... After that, they just let me go... injured and alone... but I was free..." She breathed in shallowly and then out again as she repeated, "Alone..." She looked at us and took a moment. "...I ... You two said you have a mother, so she must be worried about your well-beings by now."

And then we both panicked... We yelped and started to jog in place. In unison we would say, "We gotta go- talk to you another time- bye!" And then zipped off. While I did, I stumbled over something and nearly fell. Whatever it was made a crunch when it smashed into the ground, but I didn't notice what it was.

When I took a look back while rushing off, I noticed the Diancie was looking at where I had tripped, but I was so afraid of what was to come if we were late that I never stopped to turn back and check. I just refocused to the front and tried to catch up to my sis.

The day was a long one from that point on, but mostly because we'd been told to lean against a tree on our knees when we got back to our home in the normal parts of the forest. Mom was lecturing us up with a speech about staying gone for so long. I bugged it all out, because she was being very long winded, even if she cared that much.

While we knelt there, I couldn't help thinking about Mallory's puncture wound on the back of her head... I remember thinking, {Why would someone do that, human OR pokemon. I know they got what they wanted from her... but what exactly is that? What can a crystal do for them?}

Even after the punishment, I kept thinking about it, all the way into the night for when I slept... There was something going on back then that I didn't have a clue on, because of just how unknown it was to me. I couldn't even begin to realize what was going on and why it was happening. At the time, I don't think anyone but the commiters knew...

... ... ... Alright. I'm going to warn you, now... I've told you a little of my childhood, or at least the important part of it you needed to know before I had ever met you. Now, if you're still dead-set on listening to the very end, it's time for me to tell you why those days are over... I won't skip around details, just as I haven't been doing thus far. You have to understand everything and bare everything to know who I am... WHAT.. I am... So you must ask yourself... Are you prepared for what I'm gonna tell you...? This is where the real story begins... And not everything is happy...

... ... ... I'll give you tonight to decide, then... I'm not going anywhere, even though I could. Come back tomorrow... but only under those circumstances.


	4. Prologue 4: What Is A Gun?

... Well... You came back. Honestly, I thought you'd torchic out and stay away... ... ... I guess I should get on with it, already...

... The heaviness that this next day holds is something that makes my head feel scattered and messy, like someone is throwing around my various thoughts and as a result, their actions make me feel... lost... However, I know what happened. It's unavoidable, the horrifying events that took place... the very next day right after I had met Mallory... only no one I knew was to blame for what happened. If anyone or anything was to blame, I guess I would blame the ones who had made this day so infamous to me...

I had just woken up. My hearing was still foggy and my eyes were still closed. I had not dreamt that night, much like the other day. Just another sleep spent with time feeling like it was whisping by. My eyes finally found strength and creeped open to the ground, which was sideways as I slept on my side. After a few moments of blinking and staring at the little pond across from me, I sat up, slowly, moaning. Rubbing my eyes, I said, "Good morning.. Mom.. Sis..." ...I didn't hear a response.

Furrowing my brow, I looked around, lifting my bangs out of the sight of my eyes. I saw trees, grass, the pond and slight indentions in the ground where I was sure my mom and Kimmy fell asleep together, but they weren't there. "The heck?" I muttered, rubbing an eye lazily. "What? Did they go exploring around without me or somethin'...?"

Sitting up, my eyes adjust to see what seemed to be the dawn of the forest, a darkness still lingering along the trees and grass and the sky still a transparent dark-blue that revealed stars dimly twinkling through like a glass was held above the planet.

*Bam!*

My eyes and head snapped to my right, then my left. The sound of something loud and abrupt had just sounded and it was unlike anything I had ever heard. At the time, I had no idea what this was, but in time, I found out of what could make a sound so loud and unsettling...

... My body was as shaky as a leaf and my eyes were so wide. I'd realized that I was all alone and in terrible danger... I got up to see if the sound would come again, looking from side to side in the dimly lit forest, thinking I could spot it. I had no idea that the device that made such an unsettling sound was able to be heard from much further away than I was thinking, at the time. "... M-momm-"

*BAM BA-BAM!*

I gasped in the middle of the word as I heard a series of the same sound from somewhere off behind me, snapping around with my body shaking even worse! Fear was beyond settled in. There was nothing behind me other than a path that was open in the forest. It grew darker as it went on and as the sounds I heard before echoed out, a foreboding in my heart strangled me by the throat, making my breaths quicker. WHAT IS MAKING THAT TERRIBLE SOUND? That thought grew loud and set to repeat.

My lips were hard pressed to each other to the point when they were nearly flat. I had unconsciously tightened my hands into a strange knub fist on either arm. My heart pounded in my head loud and heavy. That same heart was warning my mind with the thought, {Don't go. Don't go,} ringing over and over to replace the other. I sweat from shaking so much, nerve-wracked, especially since I was alone... That's right. Where were mom and my sister? ...

Whatever I thought about it was interrupted by the sound of a clicking behind me, making me freeze with a pale shadow on my face.

[Don't Move...] I heard what sounded like a man's words being said through a can or something... Words that, at the time, were mottled and mixed up to me. I recognized the type of words they were though. They were just like that boy's I had visited... That's because the one behind me was a human, just like him.

I couldn't understand him, but it wasn't going to matter. I just had to think of a good place to get away to. One place was that crystallized part of the forest. I instantly used teleport and then the familiar pink flash of light enveloped me and started to make my body vanish in a pink, misty fashion. Before I was totally gone from that place, I heard the same sound from before, but this time, much louder.

*BAM!*

... I didn't get a look at what happened, but it no longer mattered. Though I didn't get a look at the man then, I eventually would...

When I reemerged, I had tumbled out of a cloud of pink mist, right into fragile, blue, crystallized grass as it crushed under me, some particles from it flying into the air. Some even stuck to me, especially at my front, the side of me that hit first. No time but a second or two had passed as always between the time I was in my home being threatened to that second I was not and back in Mallory's home.

I started to lift myself of the ground, arms hoisting my upper body up, when I heard a voice.

"Ralina?" It was Mallory's voice. She was floating in front of me, ready to take my hand with her own. "How did you just suddenly appear here?"

I looked up to confirm that it was her and my red eyes were relieved to see Mallory's somewhat glowing eyes and concerned face staring down at me, an arm out for me, even leaning herself over frontward from her personal gravity. It made her boulder half stick up a bit, somewhat silly-like. I can't lie. A smile crossed my face when I saw her.

I took her hand as she helped me up and then leveled herself back to floating right side up again. Taking my hands, I dusted myself off from the broken grass on my front side. While I did, I spoke up to Mallory, but kept my eyes on the crystal mess all over my front. "H-hey Mallory... And to answer your question, I can teleport myself anywhere I've been before or can see... within reason..." I looked up at her after I was done dusting off, grief riddled my blankened face. "However, that's not important. What is important is the reason I had to do it."

Mallory's face grows even more concerned upon hearing that. "What's going on? A-are you okay? What are you doing here alone? Aren't your sister and mother worried?"

The thought of my mother and sister's whereabouts was back upon the topic coming up with my hidden brows creasing in concern and fear, a frown on my lips. I kicked the ground with my covered foot softly and wondered that myself, not even knowing where they could be. "If they are worried, I sure don't know. I haven't seen them since I woke up." I scowled, thinking about that human man that threatened me. I found myself frustrated I couldn't get his face. "But I DID have the pleasure of being threatened by a human when I woke up.", I said, sarcasm heavy in my tone.

She gasped and started rounding me in levitation, checking me for injury I guess. "By the devine trinity- he didn't hurt you, did he?!" When she was finished and an answer didn't come from me, she floated back in front of me and sighed in a little relief, brows furrowed. "You seem unharmed..." She thought for a minute and so did I, but all I thought of was what I already had been thinking of. Who was that human? She questioned me, seeming serious all of the sudden. "I heard a lot of gunfire a while ago. Was that coming from around you?"

She then had me confused, me looking up at her with a lost expression. "Gunfire? What the heck is that- a .. move?"

She shook her head, expression frozen on serious. "No, it's a loud sound that comes from guns, metal-made mechanisms that shoot metal bits called bullets. It sounds like a big... bang!" She raised her voice a little to emphasize the bang and it suddenly caught my attention when I thought of how the sounds from before sounded.

"Yes!" I suddenly shouted. Then I put my hands up to emphasis further. "But instead of a bang, it was more a blaring... Bam! It was all over the place at one point. Then when I teleported away from the man, I heard it just before I left!" Turning sight back to her, I was left startled.

She had grown pale in the face and her eyes was wide with shock. Her lips even pursed a bit. Then, her hand went to her chest as if she had felt something there, eyes closing as she sighed. "Ralina... Trinity preserve... Yo-you were too lucky, then..."

I wasn't aware that what she was calling a gun was so dangerous. My body shuddered a little while I breathed. "Wh-what do you mean? How did I get lucky?"

She slowly opened her eyes as she took a moment, letting the air grow still with hesitation... "A gun, as I said, shoots metal bits humans call bullets. You were in a point-blank spot... You're not a rock or steel type and your not able to protect yourself that well, yet, at your age with your psychic mind... If the human you spoke of was aiming for your head or your back, a single bullet would have killed you..."

Her words stung my very blood and made it feel as if it had drained into my legs. I was even paler than a sheet with my entire body quaking, not just shaking. I had no idea before then that I could have died. I WOULD have died if my teleportation wasn't a near instantaneous move. I don't know what kept me from crying back then. Most my age would have been bawling their eyes out at this point, but I guess I just couldn't. I did grab at the back of my head though, feeling for anything that seemed harmful to my health.

Her hand came down onto my head, which made me gasp and look up really quick to see her in frontward float again. She smiled reassuringly down at me. "But your okay. That's what counts, not what could have happened. So, no thinking too hard."

Taking breaths, I tried my best to calm down, whipping the sweat that had formed on my face. "E-either way, I know now that my mom and sister WERE in danger. I can't stay here..." I looked up to see Mallory's once again concerned face, continuing so say, "...and neither can you, Mallory."

She frowned with a sweat ridden look of unease. "If you think I'm letting a little girl go charging toward those monsters, you're mistaken. You'll be killed, Ralina!"

"...'M not asking for approval." She probably tried to stop me. I'm sure she tried to say something, but I had already teleported away, though it wasn't very far away.

I wound up reforming 100 yards away, but out of her sight. I was somewhere behind her... And from that distance, I wasn't out of ear shot to hear her calling for me... then breaking down weeping... I hate it when I make people cry... I'm positive back then, I almost broke down, too. I teleported again...

Several teleports later, I was back out of the crystallized parts of the forest and back around where I lived. It was the only other place I could think to start. Though I felt weird after I had used that last teleport.

Not a bad weird, but the weird that made you feel lighter. Stronger... I suddenly felt drawn to try moving something... with my mind. Looking around I found a few small nuts, humming to myself as I focused in on them... then suddenly they all started to float up as my eyes moved up. I blinked in surprise as I started to draw them closer to me, so I could reach out and grab them in my hands. I just stood there, staring at the nuts I had just made move with my mind... "Is this MY Confusion...? That was.. so easy...!"

Letting the nuts go did not make them drop to the ground, because I was gripping them with my mind. One suddenly cracks as I focus harder. With a little grunt, I used my mind to crush it! -Crunch!- Though, I also crushed the others with it, both excited and surprisingly taken back with a nervous grin on my face. "O-oops!..., Well at least I know I can crush them~..."

I looked at a tree branch and hummed to myself again, now excited that I had finally learned just one psychic move. Confusion wasn't a strong Psychic move, but it was the lowest form of it's stronger Cousin, Psychic... Yes, okay. Stop laughing. I know the name is the name of our type.

Getting back to the point, I started to wonder exactly HOW weak confusion was. Focusing on the limb of the tree, I started to try and pull the branch down with my mind, moving the branch downward toward the ground as I started to hear it's base creak and crack. Straining my focus in a groan of effort, I found myself putting my arms forward and bringing them to the side and up, as well as the branch. I let out and grunt while I threw my arms down to the side, and as I did it, the branch's base splintered and snapped. A loud, resounding -CRRRACK!- echoed out into the forest! The branch was too heavy for my confusion though and it made me have to stop holding it, letting it drop in a -thonk- of weight to the ground.

It took the wind out of me a little when I released, making me gasp and pant. I felt stronger, but at the same time, I had seen my mom take down an entire tree once to get us over a riverbank. What I just did was what could have been done by her 80 times and then MAYBE have had the same result it had on me.

Either way, looking at the branch made me smile when I gained my composure back. I was still sweaty, though. "Just confusion and I did this! How co-"

"You doofus!" I was suddenly tackled down by someone into bushes, grunting out when I hit the solid ground under them, hitting my head a little!

I was knocked for a loop after that, but heard some beating feet near me and whoever was holding me down under this bush. When I was done reeling from the impact, I rubbed the side of my head that hit the ground, finding wet mud there and groaning in disgust, only to have my mouth covered by a white hand with two fingers. I heard... my sister's voice tell me, "Quiet!" In a hushed shout. My eyes flicked my eyes to her face... and found that it WAS her! Kimmy! If I hadn't been heeding her words, I would have been asking her where she had been and what was going on and so many other things. Then I noticed something that was off about her face...

There was blood trickling her forehead and the side of her white face where she'd been cut by something. The cut seemed to have trimmed a small portion of her hair tuft there, as well. It made my stomach turn over twice and my heart race a little, putting a look of awe and fear in my eyes, which could be seen with my hair so messed up from the mud. I hadn't ever seen so much blood...

Kimmy saw my face and turned her head to look at me, putting on a reassuring smile. "Don't look at me like that. I'm fine. It's just skin. Nothing permanent~." It was the first time I was afraid I could lose a part of my family, but it wouldn't be the last...

Looking around, Kimmy peaked her head out from under the bushes, looking around once more, making sure no one was around. "It looks clear now... Those masked freaks are gone." She uncovered my mouth and let go of me, allow me to move and get out from under the bushes. The first thing I did was get the mud off of my head... but there was more warm mud on my side, making me groan out in disgust again while I tried to brush myself free of it. My sister, who was also covered in some mud, probably more than me, wasn't even concerned with it, seeming to be more concerned about watching around up. "When I saw those masked guys all around our spot, I thought they had caught you, too... You had me worried..."

The second I heard the key words "caught you, too", I froze, leaned over from trying to clear the mud from my legs. I stood straight and whirled around to my sister, one showing eye wide like the hidden one. "Caught you, too...? What do you mean...?"

She suddenly gasped and covers her mouth, turning her eyes on me for a second, but turning away to curse herself. "Why can't I ever just..." She was whispering now and I could not hear a word.

I came again, but I hopped onto her back and grabbed hold of her shoulder for that time, making her fall over, because she hadn't expected it. I had to know what she knew! "What does that mean, Kimmy?! What do you mean?! Tell me!"

I don't know if I've ever called a moment by this, but whatever the case, this had become the single most extensive minute of silence that I'd had to wait through. Kimmy was faced down in the grass under me and was not moving for a while. She didn't attempt to throw me off, even though I knew she easily could, back then.

After a full minute of breathing into the dirt, Kimmy turned her head to the side to reveal her blood dirtied face, her scarlet eye dull with the emotion of sadness and her mouth's lips quivering... "Those masked freaks are capturing pokemon... They had them in cages... I don't even know what for..." That alone was hard to take in. I let go of her shoulders and sat back against her back, just wondering why the heck these people are specifically targeting pokemon with a body type like their's.

"...I didn't believe..." She started, but stopped, her eye welling up with tears while they spilled over her face .

Seeing my sister starting to cry, I started to reach over to touch her cheek, but she slept my hand away with her own. Confused, I stood up off her back and moved to the side, letting her sit up.

She looks around again while tears wet her face more than her own sweat did. She let her gaze fall upon her lap as her lips came open to reveal her bit down teeth with a sob, her eye's squinting to stay open. "Mom.. Because I was in the way... she was knock out and.. they... they c-caught her!"

I could have kept back a gasp if I tried, because it felt like my heart suddenly stopped, a hand flying to my chest. My mouth hung open while my eyes came wide. I was shivering, sweating and unsure. Shaking my head, my mind refused to accept that... "No... Not mom... Not... She's... They'd be... M-mom is... she-"

"I-it's all my fault! They-y just .. came and.. the-ey shot at me but... she got in fr-ront of me and then they... hit her with some needle that made her go to s-leep..." She looked at me with a tear drenched face and lips that seemed like an invisible button was all that was keeping them together... Her eyes were slits... I had never seen her so miserable or hurt before. I just stared at her with eyes wide while my head was dipped down low and my hands clenched each other. "I tried... I-I tr-hied to get her up, but ... One cut me-he with a blade... and tried to go after me..." She hung her head in shame to avoid my eyes... "I don't know how I ever got away... I d-hidn't look.. back..."

By that point, she was choking on her own tears. She could not tell me a thing anymore. She could only sulk and cry on the ground now. I felt like exploding. All I could think at that time was how I wanted to run... Run... and go get our mom back... Or join her in captivity. Looking at my sister with tears running my face and hands shaking from tears and fear... Better judgement was a dead thing to me in that moment... I only wanted my mom... I thought, the masked men would take me to her...

And so.. I... I ran... and left my sister there to cry... Alone, I would run... Alone, I would be found by those freaks...


	5. Chapter 1: A Cage is A Terrible Home

Five human men stood around me, threatening me to a cage with metal devices that had long tubs and very defined forms. Guns is the only thing that I knew they could be. I saw mom in the same cage they were taking me to... not conscious, but I could tell she was alive... She wasn't alone, though... She was surrounded by a variant of other human-like pokemon you'd think to see in a forest... I can name a few by memory, but not all. Bellossom... Nuzleaf... Roselia... Crogunk, of whom was badly injured... There was even a Leavanny comforting a Meloetta... When I saw how bad off the Meloetta was, both a bit physically and greatly Emotionally, I instantly thought about how I just left Kimmy back there to be alone... Suddenly, being with Mom was bittersweet to a new high...

...What did the men look like? ... I could not see one of their faces, but a lot of them, if not all of them, wore mainly black heavy armor that was tightly molded to their bodies with white trims. There was a sort of plainness to them. Their masks were the most striking thing... The shape was plain and instead of perfectly molding their faces, it just went over them in a smooth fashion that rendered the masks themselves faceless, not just the one they were hiding. Very vague differences were drawn on them for each man. A curving blue line across the forehead, a red cross where a cheek would be, a grey arrow over the entire face, a white pair of horns drawn on both sides of the forehead, a sort of green slant on the side of the mask, as if it were a scar. You could very vaguely see through the masks and they were extremely reflective of light...

[Watch this one.] My eyes went wide with a realization that the man behind me was the one from before. His voice was the same. I nearly tripped over, but for his own reasons, that same man caught me by the arm and helped me stay steady. It's when I got a true view of which he was. The one who's mask had a red cross in the non-existent cheek. [She got away from me before. Teleported. Don't know why she didn't do it just now, though.] I couldn't understand him, but his fellow men seemed to understand him, nodding.

He then let me go, abruptly, making my balance a weird thing to get back. I felt his cold gun's tube poke my back a bit, making me gasp and erect my back straight. [Move.] I Didn't really understand him, but I knew what he wanted. Me in that cage with mom... I didn't deny him that right. I just ran into the cage and hugged my unconscious mother's waist, shivering pitifully.

I heard a man laugh, turning my head as I saw it was the one with the green slant mask, who had just closed the cage shut around us all and put some sort of... coil(?)... on it. [I know why she didn't. Look who she's hugging up to!] He gestured to my mom with his gun, but I instinctively got up in front of where his gun was pointing, making a poor excuse for a glare. I still had mud holding one side of my bangs up, so they could clearly see my eye and it's anger.

I don't know what he wanted, but if that gun went off, it wasn't hitting my mom with whatever it shot. He shrugged and laughed. [Aww, relax, Kid! I ain't gonna put a hole in her!] Suddenly, the red cross man smacked green slant man's head with his gun, lightly, making his "face" meet the bars of the cage. Grabbing the cage and using it to re-balance himself, the green slant man turned his head to the red cross, growling frustrations.

The red cross spoke. [If you kill one more subject, I will not hesitate to end your joke of a life.] The green slant man stood up and walked back to the rest of the men, muttering something angrily. The red cross man turned to them all and spoke again. [Remember. The mission is to bring the subjects back as uninjured as possible, not see how much blood they spill from shooting them. The "good doctor" needs living specimens for what he's doing. Avoid injuring them as much as possible, just as we handled the Diancie.] I heard that and my eyes grew wide in both anger and fear... But I don't know why they said it... Diancie... Were they the ones who caught Mallory...? That's what I thought.

The red cross man shrugged back to a strange vehicular machine a few yards away as it was backed up towards us, a gate opening up in the back. The gate was connected to a rectangular steel bed with surrounding walls about 3 feet high, which were full of cages full of human-like pokemon. Because I can't think of a way to describe the vehicle's front half, I'll just tell you what the vehicle was, now that I know. It was a larger type of truck. The men all surrounded us and lifted our cage up, working it over to the open holding area of this strange vehicle. Their movements made me lose balance along with my mom's unconscious body, both of us falling forward and into the bottom bars, not painfully, but my mom was atop me.

I had to squeeze my way out from under her on my arms and knees After I did, I just sat there, shacking and sniffling. My tears were showing again, dripping my cheeks. All of this for my mother. I didn't want her to leave me. I didn't think I could live without her...

I felt a large hand take my arm. Looking over to my forearm, I saw the had was green, wielding three finger, including a thumb. Looking to it's own, I saw it was mom's hand. She was staring at me through sleepy eyes and had a reassuring smile on her face.

As the truck started to move, I would be pulled into her grasping arms as she gasped at the rumbling of both the cages and the truck's "voice", sitting straight up and looking around with a surprised look on her face. I just stared up at my mom's face while she took all that was happening in. I saw confusion, anger, sadness and nervousness one by one as she thought about something.

"If it helps you understand, since I can see that they took you unconscious...", one such gruff and deep voice started. I and mom both looked to a cage on the left of our own in a brief surprise, seeing a variety of pokemon, but one such pokemon, an alakazam, was looking at us. Not only was he paler than most Alakazams I had seen, he also was probably the shortest. He looked old... He spoke with steely silver eyes on us. He raised his hand as it glowed a faint blue as if he was trying to be careful, closing his eyes and seeming to focus on my mother. His hand stopped glowing and he opened his eyes, then he looked back up to my mom, who just seems like she was waiting. The Alakazam spoke. "Those men who ambushed you while you were on that walk of your's with that Kimmy of your's? They are the ones who put you, your Ralina there and the rest of us into these cages."

Mom looked very surprised by the Alakazam's words, but to be fair, so did I. Me and mom both wanted to know what she asked next. "H-how did you know me and my babies' names?"

The Alakazam smirked and poked a claw repeatedly on his cranium. "It's an old geezer's trick. It's not a move, though. It's just what we old pokemon call the psychic pathways. A fancy way of saying Mind Reading, but it's easier to do with a fellow Psychic type." He smirks and points a finger at the man in the window of the truck. "It also works on human fools, even though it gives them a little, ehehe... Migraine. Which is my source for what I'm about to tell you, by the by."

My mom seemed taken aback, lips pursed, but nodded in understanding. I was paying attention to what he said, though, too. I was gonna learn how to do this, one day. Though, to be fair, I still haven't... It's harder than it seems.

He then seems to drop the smile, going back into his steely gazing. "These guys are paid off lapdogs. They are taking us to a... "hidden lab"... of some sort. They weren't even told exactly what's going to happen when we get there, but even if they did know, only one has enough moral correctness to change his mind, but even that ain't much."

My mom sighs, seeming to understand, nodding. "So, what your saying is that humans want us for their personal gains and that we might not be free for some time..." She shakes her head in disappointment. "I already don't like where this is going." She then looks down at me and lets me go. "Ralina, I want you to teleport awa-"

"No!" The old Alakazam warns with a serious scowl, a hand up. "If your daughter even tries, she will be shocked painfully, along with you and the pokemon with you in that cage!"

My eyes glazed over with fright as I got up from my mother's lap and ran over to the bars on the Alakazam's side of the cage, anger in my eyes lighting them up like fire. "What?!" I asked loudly.

I heard my mom gasp in fright, shivering with wide eyes, looking at the bars that bound us. "What won't human's think to try, just to catch us!? Those balls are enough, but THIS?! Cruel! Unusual! Unneeded!" My mother beat on the bottom of the cage out of frustration and anger, making it rattle and chime.

A sudden loud thud from inside the truck draws our attentions through fright. It's swiftly accompanied by a human's yelling. [Quiet back there or I'm gonna start frying ya when I feel like it!]

The Alakazam pinches between his brows with his eyes closed as our attention settles upon him again. "Humans are weak creatures, indeed, resorting to unnatural methods all to assert their dominance, purely contrived of using the planet's pokemon and resources for themselves."

My hands squeezed the bars in front of me when I heard the Alakazam say all that, my eyes' gaze falling on his feet while I thought about that boy from way back when I wandered away from home, frowning while I closed my eyes and sighed. I very quietly mumbled, "Not all humans are like these, though..." However it had become so quiet by the time I had said that every pokemon heard it. When I heard mutters, I opened my eyes and looked around at my fellow pokemon, frightened that they all had heard me.

Some seemed to doubt what I had said, though I wasn't trying to convince them, while others were confused. The one Meloetta, however, having calmed down from before when she was crying, seemed to make a faint, weak smile.

I turned back to the Alakazam, taken aback by his closed eyes and his hand raised to me, glowing light blue again.

The glowing suddenly stops as his hand drops back to his side. The yellow humanoid falls silent as his eyes open and they bore directly into my eyes. It was a long pause, but his mouth finally opens to speak. "Child... What you had with that human boy..." He seemed to pause for a sigh as he turned his back on me. "That was a mere human child. Innocent, he may yet be for the time, but he is going to grow up to lose that innocence, one day. I, too, thought like you did, in my long passed youth, but I was not long to learn the cold truth of such matters."

I just felt so angry with the Alakazam. My lips came open to show my bit-down teeth, while I shut my eyes tight. I just wanted him to... "SHUT UP!" I let it ring out loudly and heavily. The alakazam was taken back it seemed by the way he just seemed to stare at me now with an open mouth and wide eyes.

It wasn't just him... I turned my back to him, leaning back against the cage bars. I slowly slide down them until I hit bottom first on the barred floor... It didn't stop me from curiously looking around at reactions to my outburst... Those who doubted me before were surprised and unsure. The ones confused before were giving me sympathetic looks.

My mother seemed surprised that I got so angry, too. She just stared at me with lightly open lips, seeming to look sorry for something. Probably about what she said before about humans.

The meloetta seemed to look even happier though, a near full blown smile on her face. I didn't really think about it before. I was just angry, but maybe that Meloetta had a similar relationship with a human and she was smiling because I defended my claim, even if it was just through an angry outburst...

The Alakazam... Well, in the end... I don't know if his points hold any merit. I met another human besides yourself that made me really doubt he was right, but... Anyway, we aren't there yet. Though, you won't have to wait long...

I looked at my mother again, who was waving me over with a concerned look on her face. I got up, walking my way back to her lap, sitting myself atop it and just huffing. She started rubbing her fingers through my hair, gently, while she started getting muck and dirt out of it.

By that time, most pokemon start to talk in their cages, other than the Alakazam, who just decided to meditate.

She was silent for a moment, just focusing on cleaning out my messy hair. I saw my bangs about my left eye drop back down over it, making my vision iffy again. Then I heard mom speak. "I'm so sorry, Ralina. I had no idea..."

Just hearing her apology made my anger fade a bit. It could no longer be seen, but my eyes had relaxed. "I never told you, because... I thought I'd be in trouble if you knew I had gone all the way to a human place."

I heard my mother giggle softly while she started to brush dirt on my body off. "Well... I just saw how much you cared for this human boy. My daughters know how to make excellent friends, so I don't think I'd be mad at that. Though, I WOULD have been mad at the fact that you wandered off on your own that night, miss 'Oh, I was just out early, gathering berries I thought would be yummy! You are the best mom ever!' And you didn't have any luck, if I remember~."

I pouted and folded my arms, briefly biting into my lip. "Hey, I was bad at making excuses back then. I'm much better now."

I heard my mom make a snirk, then sigh while an arm came down around my front and a hand started to pet through my somewhat hair. "Well, regardless of what these other excuses you just said you've been making were, it looks like now we're both in a lot of trouble..."

I lowered my head and frowned again, remembering we were in cages and on a truck to some secret lab. "Yeah..."

I couldn't see it, but by my mother's next tone, I knew she was frowning. "I wish I could say that everything is going to be okay and that we'll figure some way out of this... but I honestly... don't see how we could get out of this, yet..."

I nodded, understanding completely as the truck we were on started to exit our forest. I couldn't see much, because there were no longer any trees, because I was too small to see over the truck bed's wall, but I did notice one thing. The sun was lighting the sky it's bright blue. I looked at the bars around us, curious as to why we weren't roasting alive, since it was the summer and the bars were all metal. They should have been scorching hot. However, maybe they were made out of some strange metal that didn't conduct heat well. It's possible. And some normal metals have this property.

For some reason, I started thinking about how I had left Kimmy in the forest. I sighed, hugging my mother's arm to myself, leaning my head into it. "Kimmy must be so afraid... I shouldn't have left her back there, but..." I just bowed my head. "I just... I couldn't think of losing you... I don't want to lose you in any way..."

Mom looked down at me and smiled reassuringly with a softness in her eyes. "Kimmy will be okay. She's the safest of all three of us, after all." At that logic, I nodded. Though, if I think about it now, what would emotions do to her?

After that long conversation, I started to realize just how tired I was. The constant draining sun was beating me even more to death. I couldn't stay awake for much longer.

About an hour passed. I had fallen asleep on my mother's lap after on half that hour with her petting her hand through my hair. I can't really say when we finally arrived at the lab, but I can say that when I would get there, it would be a great, loud wake-up call for what was to come...

It's late. Let's stop here for now... Still... I admit to being surprised you held on without falling asleep. Are you used to long stories? ... Regardless, go home for now and come back tomorrow. Once again, I will stay here. Go...


	6. Chapter 2: This Place Is A Lab?

Where was I? ... Just getting to the lab? Okay. *breathes* Okay, lets continue.

About an hour passed. I had fallen asleep on my mother's lap after on half that hour with her petting her hand through my hair. I can't really say when we finally arrived at the lab the Alakazam mentioned, but I can say that when I would find myself awake the next time, I wouldn't be in my mother's arms.

The hour would pass. While I lay wherever I was then, I would dream. Dream of the forest that I lived in and hoped to one day return to. I was having another game of tag with my family. I hadn't tagged either of them, yet.

When I found them walking right out from a tree to my right and looking at me with playfully taunting smirks, I gasped and tried to run and tag them... but found myself without the speed to catch them as my everything seemed to move half as fast as I wanted them to.

Kimmy stood off from me, 20 feet away at most, taunting me with a raspberry and jogging in place. "Were you always this slow, Rali? I can outrun you in my sleep! Your no challenge at all, anymore~."

I was still running, my feet feeling like they were being slowed by invisible tar. Every step took 2 seconds to hit the ground. I started to get frustrated and tried to force myself to run faster... but only found myself floating up through what felt like very little gravity at all. I would end up 5 feet in the air and tumbling forward slowly while my sister laughed at me. In the views I got while tumbling, I'd see her turning around and sprinting off without me being able to give a decent chase.

10 seconds later, after she had left I fell to the ground, sprawled and dizzy. I lifted my head, which felt like I was lifting four, to see that my mother was running over to me. I hadn't noticed it before, but the area was slowly losing it's color. It was becoming faded and grey. So was my mom. I, however, was staying my normal coloring.

She spoke as if this wasn't happening while she crouched down to me. "Oh my~! Are you okay, my little baby? I saw you trip and-" She had been reaching out her hand to mine, but stopped, pulling it back and getting this snicker going behind an obnoxiously grinning mouth of teeth. They nearly took up half her face. "Ha~. Not that easily, slowpoke~! You have to tag me the right way!" I wasn't even concerned about hide and seek anymore. I saw and knew the grey was settling in all around me and on my mom's skin. I wanted to warn her- tried to open my mouth... but I found no sound when I did.

I looked down at my lip, gaping with wide eyes as my hands flew to my mouth. Suddenly, I was moving normal speed again and could talk, muttering a half-hearted, "What...?" I looked back up, but my mother was gone. She probably ran off when I wasn't paying her mind. Either way. The entire forest was now grey and looked ashy, dust in the air as if foreboding, a message on the wind. Two words popped into my sight. They read, "So alone."

I sat there in a frozen stare, numb to the meaning of the words as I shook my head, brows furrowed in confusion.

Somehow... my vision was now positioned in front of... myself? I could see Something... Or I thought I could. When I tried to look, everything went black...

I opened my eyes wide in the real world, gasping as deeply as I could, feeling like I hadn't breathed in a while. The first thing my waking eyes saw was a dimly lit space with a single dangling light source in a cone far, far above me tied to the ceiling of wherever I was. A grey and featureless ceiling.

When I finally came to remember what had happened before, my eyes went wide with fear! I was so panicked that I sat up in a hurry, adrenaline pumping my vains while I could hear my pulse in my ears! What I saw was a charcoal and dark blue striped room that had a grey, metal floor. There was fur, leaves and even scales scattered about, undoubtedly from recently imprisoned pokemon!

I got to my feet and started to look for a way out, breathing heavily in panic. I found hay before that. Two big nests of it. They were mostly clean and at least big enough to take 4 small pokemon or two big ones. On my second look, I didn't find an exit either... I found another pokemon. The way I found it was that it had come up to me and taken my hands, giving me a reason to look it's way as fast as I could in a gasp that burned my lungs! I don't know how I didn't cough. It was the Meloetta from before.

She was looking at me with an expression that was a little scared and very concerned, with wide eyes whose brows raised and a frown in her lips. "Please calm down. I know this isn't a good place to wake up in, but-"

I didn't listen very long, nor look her way that long when I found a place on the wall that had an indention. A door! My mind screamed, {A way out}, and I listened almost immediately by ripping myself from the Meloetta's hands while she gasped and took a step away, watching in concern as I ran right at the door blindingly fast!

When I reached the door, it didn't take that much thought to start banging and hitting on the door with the undersides of my fists! I didn't make much noise at all, nor budge the door significantly. It was like hitting against concrete to me with how big and thick it was to me.

After a while, though, I grew very anxious. I wanted OUT! I should have tried it sooner, but my mind never registered it. Use my psychic power to try and pull the door out! It was brilliant... except...

I started to try, so hard that a pink aura radiated off of me and sparked on and off!

The meloetta gasped and tried to rush over to me, screaming, "No! You can't! This place is like the cages- you'll-" Too late. I heard a whine from the walls around us, stopping what I was trying to do as my aura vanished. Suddenly the floor lit up with electricity that hit both of us, excruciatingly! I screamed in pain at the top of my lungs! The meloetta was definitely screaming with me and in just as much pain! This was not like being hit by any other electric type's lightning! This was like Raiku himself was angry at me! So unbearably painful and sharp enough to be felt down to the bones in my body! Pens and needles were all I knew! Three inch long pens and needles!

Right when I thought it would never end, The electricity cut off with a low -dong!- sound as some sort of signal. I fell into the door, smacking head first into the cold, metal surface. I was numb as it was, so that pain barely even registered. When I hit the ground, it was in a light -tink- with the metal floor. I couldn't move for a moment or two, but it felt like hours. I was so dumb from the pain that crying or whining didn't even come to mind. My heart may have almost stopped...

The Meloetta was in a similar situation, doubled over in a curled up fashion head to the floor within her knees, just trying to bear through it, only she looked like she had more endurance than I did. She even recovered faster than I did, gasping suddenly while she slowly rose, sweating. Her hair, signaturely light and wavey, was messy now from sweat, the fall she took and the electricity. She was able to shake off most of the pain while I still struggled to get my feeling back. Fixing her hair while she walked toward my sprawled out body, she spoke. "Th-the room.. is designed l-like the cages we were in. It will shock us if we-e try to use any power in here..." When she reached me, she crouched down next to my shivering and pathetically twitching body, placing a hand on my back with a frown. "Take your time... If you want to, you can cry. I don't expect you to be able to deal with this sort of pain the first time or second. Let's try for no seconds, though..." Unimportant right now, but you should know that there was something odd about her hand. At that time I didn't realize it, though. Anyways...

...I remember taking her words the wrong way, thinking she was saying that I was weaker than her. I knew the meloetta was a "legendary", but she wasn't one of the strong ones, so her talking down to me felt sort of ... It made me angry... Angry enough to stop my whimpering and most of those uncontrollable twitching movements my body was making.

I had choked what was about to be me crying like a baby, even if the held in sobs made me cough as if I would gag. My lips opened to show what was an angry grit through teeth. It was also a hurt sad curl of my lower lip, but I did my best to hide that and look tougher than I had actually been. Seconds later, to challenge her words, I forced myself to sit up, then stand, even if I nearly fell back down when my knee twitched and threatened to buckle. My legs were still numb, obvious by how when I got up, there was no longer strength enough to keep them from shaking every now and then. I was blushing and sweating, humiliated that this was all I could force out, so far. "I... am n-ot... weak... If you c-can take it... I-I can!"

...The stereotype that boys were the only ones that had pride was false, even if now, that same thing looked so stupid to me. I hated being called weaker or feeling lesser than everyone else, especially then. Being weak was hard... Admitting it back then, though... That was impossible...

Still, looking back on this, it was a good thing my eyes were hidden under all my bangs. The meloette would have seen that it was a greater struggle than what it looked like already. She saw enough though. Her face contorted with worry as she bit her lower lip. She stood up with me, much easier, then said, "You don't have to force it! I already knew you were strong when you argued with the old Alakazam!"

I heard that, but didn't rest my strength. I felt like a ton of bricks were on my back and my legs were filled with the numbness of needles. However, regardless of my opinion, the meloetta couldn't handle seeing my obviously painful struggle to stay on my feet. Her face turned over a scowl as she shouted with a push to my chest from her hands, "Enough, already! Sit!", making me fall over on my backside, then laid out flat on my back with a struck look on my face. When I realized what she did for me, I just let myself huff there on the metal floor. It was cold, but I would be lying to you if I said it wasn't comforting after trying to force back pain. At least by that point I didn't feel like crying or curling up... That would have been even more humiliating than falling over so easily...

The meloetta huffed and sat next to me, frowning. "I know your strong", She repeated, "but it's stupid to force your body to do what it's saying it isn't ready for. And I KNOW you're not stupid, either." She suddenly gasped at her own statement, pausing for a moment. Then she looked off to the side, curling up with arms around her white skinned legs. "'Taking on more than you can handle is when you mess up...' I guess I owe him for teaching me this very same thing." She sighed and smiled down to me softly. "I am called Aria. What do they call you?"

Confused about her wording, but still in pain, I took a few breaths before I could answer. "M-My name is... Ralina... but... what was that you were... saying?" I had to take several breaths after that.

She looked at me and smiled pleasantly. "Oh. That's something a human taught me. Matthew Garneare was his name." She smiled, looking up for something that probably wasn't even there. "How about I tell you about him while you rest yourself?" I took a moment, thinking of how lucky I got to find another pokemon who didn't hate humans... and one that was so open about herself, come to think of it. My head nodded and followed her gaze, either way, to that boring, stone-color roof above us while I listened and regained what strength I could. "He was a really smart guy, even if he was very strange. It might sound weird, but I can understand some human speech. I don't know what the overly complicated words mean, but I grew up around them. I learned to read the human language known as "Elkro de mundar orlds", but in our tongue, it roughly translates to, "The Old King's Tongue". I was-..."

I looked back at her, because of her pause, and caught her with a blushing smile on her face, eyes closed. "...Well, I was roughly a baby when I started learning the language. I guess I'm still pretty young. I'm only about 13 years old." She sighed and shook her head, her cheeks turning back pale again while she looking at me. "Anyways, I met him not long ago. And kinda... well, gotten hurt after 'running away from home.'" She looked down at her pale calf and pointed at some spot on it.

I didn't see what she was pointing at, so I used the strength I gained back so far to turn my head and look a little closer, though she spoke before I got a look.

"I had broken my leg."

I instantly winced at that, but only a little before looking back up at her. "Sorry..."

She cocked her brow and snirked a chuckle at me. "For what? You didn't do it. Another pokemon did, but to be fair, he got hit by one of those big, metal things like the one that took us here." She hummed and looked off to the side, making a swivel with her lips. "I should feel bad for getting him killed, but he was trying to kill ME and chased me to where he got hit. So, I'd rather just remember to stay clear of his kind." She looked at her leg again and put it out in a stretch. It's skin was flawless, looking nearly like it was silken, just like the rest of her flesh. It could HAVE been silk. "Matthew was the one controlling that metal thing. He called it an, uhm... R-200? He saw the pokemon trying to kill me, so..." She let her leg curl back and then folded both her legs together. "Well, anyways, he took me to some weird dome-shaped building and had someone called, "Nurse Joy" treat my leg. Ultimately, she told him I would be there for a month. If he wouldn't have saved me, I wouldn't even be HERE of all places, now."

I had known humans could be kind, but that was the first time I had heard of a human killing for another pokemon. I turned my head away from her and sighed. "Sure wish the humans that took us were more like our human friends... We wouldn't even be here right now, if they were."

She turned to face down at me and made an honest smile when she heard that. "... You'd better tell me about your human friend, later. I don't get to talk to many other pokemon who have them, so..."

I smiled right back a little, but said nothing as she went on.

"Matthew went to the hospital every day. I guess it was about the second day when I first tried to talk to him using the tiny bits of King's Tongue I knew. I didn't know the first thing about assembling the right words into a real sentence, so it was like talking gibberish." She smirked a bit with a wryness about her. "He.. well, he laughed like crazy. I hadn't realized it came out as something weird."

I turned my head to her and asked, "What did you end up saying?"

She smiled, crookedly and cleared her throat before her eyes gazed up at the ceiling. "... I said something along the lines of.. uh... 'fun trip mack to glad poffen'..."

If only she could see my cocked brow. I snickered into a bitten smile.

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Laugh it up, har har. I got a lot better, I'll have you know."

"Prove it," I said, without thinking with a big grin that immediately sunk down into a sweating frown. Yup. THAT thought crossed my mind... I couldn't speak King's Tongue.

And Aria immediately let out a huffing laugh or two as she turned to me and smirked, brows raised as she leaned over and close to me. "Yeel clov ahn trovna ose' chie... yahn chie sholve torhela yeel, haa~." And for some reason I couldn't hope to understand, she blushed through her smirk.

I just laid there with my eyes wide beneath my hair, till my bangs fell to one side and revealed one. "U-uhh..." A sheepish smile crossed my face as I furrowed my brows, sweating as I tried to think of what might be an appropriate response. "Well, uh... I guess that o-only makes.. sense? I mean, Torchics ARE flightless, after all."

This time, she had a laugh. And right in my face! At least she wasn't too loud. She sat back into her previous spot and cleared her throat as she opened her mouth, pausing before she spoke. "If... ever you learn what I just said, you are gonna... feel like exploding." She smirked while her face relax... except for that growing smile. "Let's leave it at that." ... I see that look on your face. Come on. Stop. I'm sure that was a joke, given the context.

MOVING ON, I OBVIOUSLY felt very lost, blinking at her with the cluelessness of a wooper. "R-right... Well, uh, what happened next?"

The meloetta hummed in question, sitting there for a moment. With an "oh", she smiled brightly and went on. "Well, I guess you could say that me speaking King's Tongue just now is a good demonstration of what happened next. He taught me more and more about the language, day after day. And the more I learned, the more I could understand what he was saying and even respond to it. And he didn't just teach me the vocal part of it. I even learned how to WRITE King's Tongue, which is a lot different than it initially seemed like it would be." She cocked a brow. "The letters are literally nothing like our own. Some merge, others reverse half the time. Not just that. Their words read virtually backwards to our own."

Just thinking about it made me sweat as I let out a whistle. "Sounds complex. I think I'd love to learn it, though."

Aria smirked a bit as a guilty furrow came over her brows. "You should. Just... not from me."

I blinked. "Why?"

She hung her head. "I uh... never learned anywhere near all of it. Just the letters and a few rules."

And then, a grin crossed my face. "Better watch out~. I might learn it before you and then get my revenge. Then, we'll see who's confused."

With a huffing laugh, she smirked through narrowed eyes. "Try. It's way harder than I make it sound. And I make it sound pre-tty hard already, I wager."

Now, it was my turn to take a mock laugh. "We'll see~."

The meloetta sighed and shook her head before she relaxed and stared up at the ceiling. "Well, either way, it was a month well spent. When you learn how to actually speak a language that complex, it really makes the way we were taught- the language, I guess- seem easy. Maybe even childishly so."

"From what you just said, I think I see why."

She just nodded. She then blinked into a blankness, sitting there for a bit. "... I guess I should say that I skipped around a bit. About half way through the month I spent in that hospital, I tried to levitate my way out the window, because I wanted to see Matthew earlier than he usually came. I thought that since I wasn't using my leg, it wasn't gonna hurt." She shifted around a bit while she frowned. "It... didn't work out. I guess that broken bones are gonna hurt no matter what, if you do something wrong. I fell on the floor before I even got three feet away from my bed. Thank Arceus I didn't mess up my leg even more. Nurse Joy got to me pretty quick and Matthew wasn't far behind her. I don't think I ever asked why he was early that day. The only things I know for sure was that I tried to tell him I was fine and that I could do with the pain. That... Well, it made him mad for once. Scolded me and said that he could see the pain in my face."

Aria giggled through a small grin. "He said to me what I did to you. 'Taking on more than you can handle is when you mess up.'" She paused again, before looking over at me and smiling. "I guess that I got comfortable after that. I had to learn to be patient, because I didn't want to have that happen again. And not just that, but any other accidents that could happen from being that way... So, I made that month by learning." She let her smile shrink and eyes close. "I left that place behind after that and went on my way, back to where I came. I could have stayed with Matthew. He offered for me to, but uh..." She folded her arms and looked straight in front of her at the door to the room. "Well, I know he said that it was just so that no one else could catch me, but the idea of being "caught" doesn't appeal to me. It always sounds wrong. Like I'd be a pet, I guess."

I completely understood, nodding my head before laying straight back and letting my hair totally fall out of the way of my eyes. "Yeah. My mom said to never let any human with a red and white ball in their hands get near us. She told us that they were always a sign of humans called "trainers" that could trap us in one of those and take us away."

The meloetta nodded and spoke. "She was smart to tell you that. Some are better than others and let a pokemon go, if it's obvious they don't want to be caught." Smiling wide, she sighed. "I'm glad Matthew was one of those sorts of trainers."

It made me smile to hear that come from her. For a second, it almost sounded like we were going to start talking about the humans that we didn't like.

A few moments later, I sat up, having regained my full strength... or at least the important part of it... Looking up at my hair, I noticed it was still messed up, strands everywhere. It felt like a few clumps were sticking up on the top of my head. I shook my head a few times really fast to whirl and whip bangs and locks all over, but that wasn't working well.

By the time I started trying to smooth my hair out with my... well, nubish hand, I felt a second pair of hands in my hair. These, however, I could feel had fingers. A full set. The only other pokemon or person in the room with me was Aria. If she could have just seen my eyes them. I bet they would be as dinner plates. "Wait. Aria? You have... fingers?" It still shocks me to this day, since it took so long for me to notice. Her hands stopped for a moment and then dropped into my vision. I just stared and smiled a little, kinda intrigued. "Wow." A full set, as I thought, complete with thumbs and each individual finger had smooth, shiny finger nails, which were actually quite nicely kept. She had small hands and like the rest of her arms, they were jet black in color.

I looked up at Aria, sorta letting hair fall away from my eyes as I craned my neck back to look at her. I felt her hands rest on my forehead as she smiled naturally down at me with her hair draping down around her head. It didn't look like she was bothered by my noticing, so I spoke up on the subject. "I didn't know Meloettas had these sorts of hands."

She rolled her eyes and smirked to one side of her mouth more than the other. "Most of us don't. We're usually born with nubs for hands, just like you raltses. Though, I was born with these weirdos." She brought her hands away from my head and held them up in my sight, wiggling her small, slender fingers playfully while she grinned big and toothily with her big blue eyes crossed. "And if I'm honest, that's fine by me~!"

I snickered and brought my head forward, covering my mouth as I started to laugh into my nubs! I could hear her laughing, too. Then I realized I had the nuby hands in our pair up, looking at them with crooked and laughing smirk. "Yeah-haha! You have the cool hands! I got the nubs! But you know what? I'll have hands when I evolve, so HAH! Take that, evolution! Ahahaha!" I was laughing so hard that I rolled over atop her and flattened both of us out on the ground, her more than me, since I ended up laid out on her as she let out an erk. She blushed for a moment while her eyes bugged, but soon enough, she cracked up, both in laughs and in a cheeky grin. We laughed way too hard, though if I'm honest, the fact about our weird hands isn't really THAT funny. It was mostly the goofy face she made that was funny.

She laughed so hard by the end of it that her face was red in the cheeks and her eyes were tearing up. She grinned through that while she whipped the sweaty tears from her eyes and continued to chuckle for a bit. When she finally settled down, she sighed with a satisfied smile on her lips, eyes calmly staring up. She paused while she placed her hands back on my head, gently. "You know, it's funny."

Calming down myself, I stared up at her face with a small smile. "What is?"

"That even though we're where we are, Ralina, here we are, still able to find something to smile or laugh about."

I blinked and stopped smiling for a moment, getting brought back to the reality that we were in a locked up metal "box" that could still shock us if we used our powers. A blank expression dawned my face for a moment until I finally smiled slightly from one side of my lips, thinking back to her goofy face from moments back. "Yeah. I know that I'm still scared about what might happen to us here, but ... I don't know. I might be going crazy, though I feel like I wanna just forget my place and escape to another world." I just laugh at how deep this was getting, remembering that I'm still just a kid... Yeah, a kid... I think it was about then that I finally looked over the meloetta, just seeing how I measured up to her. With the current position we were in, it was plain to see the size difference. She was, at the very least, half a foot taller than me. My covered feet were nearly even with her nubbed points, but when I looked up, I was missing her straight gaze by a quite a few inches. And there were so many other larger pokemon than her that got captured with us. Aria was a legendary meloetta, though. Her being caught was... harder to imagine. It made me really think, for some reason as my expression fell into an uncertain grin. "... You know, I really should be much more afraid than I am. After all, you're 13 years old and a legendary species. Well, I'm just 7 year old ralts."

She almost immediately gasped and sat up, helping me up as well. "J-just 7? But your speech is so-"

"Developed?" I interrupted, guessing her last word as I slide myself and off of her entirely, looking into my lap.

She blinked with a little sweat rolling the side of her face, blush rising in her cheeks for some reason as she flicked her eyes about. She returned them to me as the blush quickly died while she firmed her lips flat together, then nodded her head.

I looked back and smiled half-heartedly. "We raltses.. are very intelligent. We learn much more much quicker than most other pokemon... My mental age might be somewhere around your actual age, but I'm still just 7 years old. Barely..."

She narrowed her brows in concern and hesitantly asked, "Barely?"

I turned myself around with a few scoots, then nodded, looking down and feeling bad for not telling her sooner. "...If it's not the same day as when we were first caught anymore, then... today is my birthday..."

I think that shocked her too hard, because her face was one of extreme pity, her lips forming a frown with her brows curved up as she struggled to keep her eyes on me. A moment went by, then she bit her lip briefly and closed her eyes tight, bowing her head. "No shame..." Suddenly, she reached out and hugged me close and tight to herself. I could feel she was shivering and somehow, the waves of her anger were very apparent... "These humans... they're nothing but CREEPS..."

I didn't try to hold back tears, because in the moment, they just suddenly came flooding from my eyes. My lips remained blank... I think it was in this moment that the following sunk in: I wasn't going home any time soon and I was far more scared than what I had previously let show... I was terrified... I could just hide it away as long as Aria wasn't being down...

The more we sat together like that, the more I felt small and helpless... I hated feeling like that, but I think that what I truly was... This place that we were in was going to break us if we let it. I was already feeling the pressure... I think Aria was, too...


	7. Chapter 3: What Do These People Want?

It had been a couple of hours since our break down. In that time, me and Aria had calmed down again, but we were silent for most of that time.

During that time, the humans came to our door and used this small slot in the underside of the door to push in a square tray full of what looked to be food. It wasn't special. It didn't have the true look of food, either. A strange sort of berries I had never eaten that were green in color and didn't taste that fantastic at all and brown, odd encrusted large pellets that turned out to be, upon my tasting, potatoes. ... Their called potato tots? Weird name. Either way, they weren't very good. Probably not going to ever want to see them again, either...

Moments after we both ate at least some of what we were given, Aria had gone back to fixing my hair with those hands of her's and we'd just started talking away again. We touched on a lot of subject, just trying to pass the time. After I asked about her family, she gave me an interesting answer.

"I have... well, HAD, 13 sisters and a mother, all of which were fellow Meloetta that looked exactly alike except for size. I could tell you all of their individual sizes, but that would be boring." She smiled just a little and giggled softly. "Instead, just know that my mother was three times larger than I am now, so I have a lot of growing to do."

I blinked and sweat a bit. It wasn't the mother's size that got to me... I was just imagining having 15 Kimmy's in my own family and it was... creepy. "That had to be the most confusing line of sisters... I only have one and thinking about fifteen of her just nearly stopped my heart..."

She snickered through a grin that grew upon her face, just before finishing up with my hair. "Yeah, well I'm thankful, hah, they didn't act like clones~! They were vastly different. You wouldn't even be-lieve!" She then then made a blank face with wide eyes, which turned into swivel-lip-ed one with cocked brows. "Although... to my knowledge? Every single one spoke like a dang mystic."

Curious as always, I asked, "A mystic?" I had never heard the word.

Suddenly, she stands up on her knees and puts one hand to her puffed out chest and one outstretched. She had a cool look in her eyes while I swear her hair moved as if it was being blown by non-existent wind. "O', mine speech! Thee is holy without end! Tranquil like the river floweth, mine most graceful words! Yon Hero princess I pine for thee!" Suddenly she stops and puts her hands on her hips, then sticks it her tongue and raspberries it with bored eyes. She then rolled them and groaned. "It was a-nnoying!"

I had to hold back my laughter, just because it looked so funny. When I was sure I wouldn't laugh I huffed and smiled. "I wish I could do all the faces you do."

She folded her arms and smirked, sitting back down on her feet. "Trust me. When you get older, you'll figure them out. Making faces like those are easy."

I was almost about to giggle through my wide smirk, but then I just... well... I froze half way into it when I thought about what I might be when I'm older. A kirlia and maybe even a gardevoir... I lost that smirk pretty quickly when I remembered that I still didn't know what happened to mother. I knew even less about my sister, being she had escaped this whole mess, to my knowledge. I found myself frowning into the metal floor under me... I just sat there and closed my eyes. "Yeah... My mother and sister... I know my mother is in here with us, somewhere... I don't know what happened to my sister..."

When she heard that, Aria's eyes bugged... then she shut them tight and smacked herself in the face with an open palm. "Oh sweet Arceus, what was I thinking?"

"No..." I put a hand up and shook my head as she stared at me and blinked through confusion. "It's... okay. I liked hearing about your family. Honest..."

She sat there for a while, then scooted a little closer to me, twiddling her thumbs. "If I can still ask... what are they like? I mean, yeah. I saw how much your mom cares about you, but I don't know much more. I didn't even know you had a sister."

About then, I guess I smiled because I was thinking about how much I loved the both of them. "My mother... She's the literal picture of love and motherly kindness. She... I can't even begin to do her justice. And I don't think I will ever measure up to what she is... One time, she beat a metagross so bad that it totally lost it's mind. I..." I frowned when I thought about how she got caught... "Those humans were cowards... They only ever caught her because she was protecting Kimmy... But..." My head shook when I thought about how that made Kimmy sound... "It was never Kimmy's fault. They were just playing dirty... My sister is a lot stronger than me, even if she's nowhere near mom's level. I admit she could be a doofus, but no doubt. She was my best friend. We did everything together." A chuckle escaped my throat. "We'd take turns pranking each other and getting in and out of trouble with mom..." A calm smile came to my lips. "I ... really love them, both. I can only really wonder why a tiny little ralts like me can even be part of the same family as them." I gave a shrug and I huffed a laugh. "I don't measure up at all..."

"Well, that sounds like a bunch of bull." I snapped my head up to gawk at Aria as she smiled so wide. "You sell yourself so short that it's terrible. And I'm not just saying that because you're smaller than me." She let her smile relax down into a grin as she tilted her head. "You haven't really had enough time to figure yourself out yet, okay? I've been here this entire time and I've seen that you're a tough little cookie. Just wait. When you get older, you'll only be tougher, smarter and all-around greater."

I frowned exaggeratedly as she called me that, blush running through my cheeks as I scratched the back of my head. "Oh, come on. Don't mush me to death! My mom does that enough..."

With an amused smirk on her face, she curled her legs in and wrapped them in her arms as she rested her chin on her knees. "Ralina, you better get used to it. There is always gonna be someone "mushing it up"."

With a groan, all of me disagreed with that. It meant the corny lines were never gonna end.

On that note, I heard a very angry voice screech out multiple times, muffled by the door and maybe distance, making both me and Aria immediately jump and gasp, looking at the door of the room. We grew quiet...

A man was scream. His voice was rough and somewhat high pitched. [Failure! Again! I had such high hopes for zhis to whork! Aign! First zhe grass type, zhen zhe psychic! Zhey just kept giving out at zhe einde! Such promise! Such progress! Keins von BEIDEM! Test, after test, after TEST! Does zhe frustrations never einde! I just want for z-zhis to VORK- Ah-haa~...! ah... uuhn... ... I whant zhe normal type next- I... I need my geneeskunde. *Groan* ... Come to my office when you haff zhe subject ready.] ... Silence afterwards. For a minute straight.

"That guy was hard to understand." I looked at Aria and blinked, remembering she could understand humans. "He was making a lot of errors, but I caught some of it. Grass type, Psychic. Then 'just kept giving out at... something.' Then he started getting too loud and the echoes made it too hard to hear quick enough to make sense of. I understood "Normal type next" after he got quiet..." She looked at me, seeming concerned as she rubbed her hands together. "I'm.. half normal type... Did he ... Was he talking about me?"

I was going to comment, but then I heard another human's voice beyond the door. This one was a female. I looked at the meloetta and then back at the door with her, sitting up.

She groaned out it what sounded like frustration. HER voice was much easier on my ears. [That man! I understand he has a blood pressure problem, but he can be such a-... *sigh* Okay, Open the door. Lets get this over and HOPE that this time, the pokemon will survive.]

I heard a gasp from Aria and looked her way, eyes wide under my hair. "What? What did she-" -K'chunk!- I froze, not prepared for that at all. And by that... I meant the door opening. It slid open with a loud, metalic -SKREEE!-

[W-what.. in...]

I turned my head as my eyes grew wide in fear, seeing a human woman standing at the door with the same sort of armored men that caught us and brought us here. She was wearing a long, white coat that nearly seemed more like a dress in length. Under, she wore a frilly black skirt that went all the way down to her thighs. She clutched those wooden board to her chest that was full of papers clipped down to it's surface.

... It's called a Clip Board? Wow. How imaginative.

... Her face? Well, she had light green, round eyes, dark skin, black-as-night hair and a fairly angular jaw line. I guess when I think about it, she was kind of pretty. She looked somewhat young, but she was probably older than she looked. You could tell by her curves.

She just stared with a shocked and scared look on her face. She shook her head a few times very slowly, then looked at the armored men to her sides. They didn't seemed to see things as she did, showing no emotion and even coming toward us.

I and Aria both got up and ran to the back corners of the room, pressing ourselves into the walls as the men split up and tried to catch us. The man in front of me had a needle of some type in his hand attached to a clear tube filled with a clear liquid. He quickly took my arm as I screamed and pleaded, "No! No, let go!"

[Stop!]

The men suddenly look at the woman, startled as they pulled their needles back, giving us room to breath, even if every breath I took felt empty as I stood there, frozen and sweating.

The one holding Aria spoke as he kept a tight grip on Aria's wrist. [Maám?] I still didn't understand them, but Aria did, of course, judging by how she gazed wide-eyed at the woman, seeming to focus in on her with surprise across her face.

The human was shaking her head with this unbelieving scowl in her narrowed eyes, mouth open as she searched for more unfamiliar words. When she finally spoke, she glared at the soldier holding the Meloetta's arm. [Absolutely not! I don't care how much that man screams at me, we will NOT experiment on child stage evolutions! Let them go! Now!]

The man seemed to look between the Meloetta and her before settling on her, mask hiding the emotions he might be displaying. [Maám, with all do respect, that won't fly wi-]

[I said that I don't care!], she hissed while throwing down her clip board as it clanged against the metal floor, making it's papers fly every which way in a spread around the room! It made me flinch and look away for a moment, before I slowly turned my gaze back to this woman, hesitantly. I remember thinking she'd attack them.

The man holding me by the arm looked over to the other. The other looked to him. I wish I knew what had been going on beneath those masks, but there was no way. He looked down to Aria... then let her arm go as she wrenched it back from him, holding her wrist in her hand as she just seemed to continue to stare at the woman in surprise and confusion. That's about when I felt my arm get released, the human male standing up from me while he faced the woman. [If he gets mad, he better not aim that air horn he calls a mouth at us. I'm not paid to put up with bullshit like that.]

[Why...?]

I blinked when I heard the strange word from a very familiar tone of voice. My eyes traveled to Aria while they grew wide as she spoke again with furrowed brows and a frown. It was still surprising to hear human words come out of her mouth. Once again, I didn't understand any of her words. [Why.. are you helping us...?] I

The two guards had snapped their attentive stares down to her. I could practically see the shock beneath their masks when they gasped and stepped back. The woman, too, gasped while her expression turned to a wide-eyed shock. [You... you speak our language...?]

It wasn't a trick of the mind. It wasn't some telepathy. Aria's lips matched the words she spoke, just like before. [I do. And I understood most of what you said.]

As her mouth drifted open while she knelt down to pick up her clipboard and the various papers that had spilled off of it. She could only utter one word. [I-...Incredible...!]

The men both stepped away from us as one that had been holding my friend shook his head. [More like a freak show.]

Being the only one that was lost as to what was going on was nerve burning. I didn't understand a word they- anyone was saying now, with my one friend now speaking their language instead of our own. I just kept wide-eyedly looking back and forth between her and the humans.

[Why do you want us here if you have no real use in us being around?] The meloetta grew irritated now that she had their attention, eyes narrowing carefully on the woman. [Why not let us go, then? And why attack us and drag us here in the first place? You act with our health in mind, but only because we're "child stage pokemon?" And if we weren't, what then?]

The woman just looked away, uncomfortable with furrowed brows and a coat hidden frown I could just FEEL was there. She didn't make a sound for the longest time with the guards beside her speechless while they stared. I could practically hear them judging us within that moment.

Closing her eyes softly for a moment, the human woman then turned her head to Aria again, eyes open. [...What we're doing here has a purpose beyond what may seem pointless to all of you. Please... Understand, what we are doing here will benefit both sides. As much as I complain, I do know the right of all this, even if there is still the wrong...]

My friend shook her head and folded her arms, turning away from the woman. [You think it helps the ones you've already killed? The thing you're working toward... Does it bring back the dead?]

The woman seemed deeply wounded by that, a mortified frown on her face. She shut her eyes and turned her back to us. She seemed to be visibly shivering.

What I felt in that instance... confused me. I cocked my head to the side while looking at Aria. I didn't quite understand what it was I felt off of her. It felt crushing... freezing...

While I tried to understand what I felt, the woman spoke in little more than a choked whisper. [...I-I'm sorry... but I will do all I can to keep you two s-afe... E-excuse me...]

I heard something in the back of my head, but it felt like it was being led into me from the woman as I looked at her. Words were assembling into sentence structure in my head. The feeling was wet... and uncomfortable. It made my throat feel... stuck? {... But why must it be this way?} I let out a near silent gasp, then shook my head as my hand drifted up and massaged a temple. I must have moaned, but my head felt funny in that moment. Before I realized what was going on with me, I felt something warm and wet turn cold as it dripped down my cheek. My eyes grew as I righted my neck and reflexively slid my hand down to my wet cheek, knub hand catching the running wetness... I pulled my hand away and stared at it, the surface, wet and reflective. I had wiped my tear. My eyes squinted scrutinizing that as my mouth pursed open a bit, then scrunched as I raised a brow. I wasn't sad. I was scared, but not to the point where I wanted to cry. That I was in tears at all made no sense to me.

Rubbing my hand to my side to wipe the wetness from my hand, I looked back to the woman, who quickly brushed passed the two guards and exited the doorway to the left, both staring toward her for a moment before snapping their attention to the Meloetta. The left guard spoke. [That how you thank everyone who saves your miserable life?] He then turned to his buddy and nudged his head to the doorway. [We have our orders. Lock ém back up.] Then, he left the room while the remaining guard stepped just outside the door, taking one last look at me.

I could feel myself sweat through my glare while I lowered my head, but kept my gaze on him.

...He shook his head, then spoke. [You should teach her some manners, kid. That attitude's gonna get her in trouble.] I didn't understand a word, but I could feel the taunt in his tone.

He began to slide the door closed again with a long, loud -SKRRREEEE!-

A gasp escaped my throat with my eyes growing wide. The realization finally dawned on me. That was my only way out! I forgot everything and ran for the quickly closing gap in the door with all my strength, but...

-CLANG!- It slid closed and I ran face first into the thick, metal door instead, grunt before I quickly re-orientated myself and began to bang on the door as hard as I could. Again, I could hardly even make the door sound off with insignificant bumping noises. Again, we were trapped inside with no exit; not even the view of the hallway on the other side...

I eventually petered back out when my arms got tired enough, my pounding slowed rapidly while I started to pant and sweat.

Aria watched me tire with a frown, walking towards me.

By the time she reached me, I was already out of breath and my arms felt too heavy to move. I slowly leaned my head into the door while panting, sweat dripping down my face before falling away. I just stood there, tired, knowing that I couldn't get out. I'd wasted my energy trying. I wasn't as sad as I was angry.

Thinking about those guards and the weirdos that brought me here made my blood boil. My teeth grit together as my lips curled open... and then a hand came to gently rest on my shoulder. I snapped my head in it's direction with a small gasp, only to calm down upon seeing it's black and familiar fingers, letting my face relax into a blankness.

I turned myself to see my friend, doing her best to smile, despite how sad she looked with those furrowed brows. She didn't say anything, but... somehow, the smile was comforting by itself. My exhaustion was still there, but a smile couldn't cure that.

Lowering my head, I stared at her "feet" while thinking of what to say as I took a few much needed breaths... "What... What did the girl human say?"

She sighed through her smile before she stepped back from me, taking her hand off of my shoulder. Her smile was replaced with an uncertain frown. "I don't really know what to make of most of it. She DID just help us. Got the guards to stop."

I was suspicious of that, raising my head again to stare her in the eyes while I shook my head a little. "Why on Earth would she do that? What, does she think she'll earn berry points with us?"

The meloetta cocked a brow at me. "Berry points?" She paused for a moment while I opened my mouth to explain, but she cut me of as she shook her head and said, "Never mind that for now." So, I closed my mouth again, just listening. "I don't think she had anything to gain by letting us be. She still did it, though, which I have no idea how to take. When I asked about why she was working with humans like the ones that took us here, she got nervous and tried to justify what they were doing here. She said that this all has a purpose- that it would help both humans AND pokemon." She huffed with a bored expression on her face, raising her brows while she shrugged. "I asked her if it helps the dead. She seemed pretty broken up after that. Don't really know what I'm supposed to take from that."

I felt... confused... I disbelievingly narrowed my eyes behind my hair. I wanted a reason to be angry with the woman, too. After hearing that, though, I didn't know what to think, either... I briefly questioning myself aloud while I turned my attention to the ground, recalling that weird feeling from right before the woman left. "Was that what I felt...?"

Aria blinked over at me with a cocked brow. "Felt...?"

I didn't really have an answer, nor did I understand WHY I felt it. I still didn't know it was part of being what I am, but I knew one thing... Somehow, I'd just felt her emotions. Not only that, I understood what she was thinking, even though she should have been thinking in a different language completely.

My mouth opened... but it closed right back up as I thought. I had to be mistaken. {Okay, she's taking a while.} I gasped and snapped my head toward Aria and she in turn seemed taken aback as she jumped a little, eyes wide. Walking over to me, she frowned. "Ralina, are you okay?! What did you do that for?" I had already started to feel it again; the feeling coming off of her. It was ... too strange to describe. Maybe cold, maybe hot, but it was stinging.

I didn't understand what this was meant to be, but I knew one thing. I blinked and rubbed at my temple again as I turned to her. "I... I think I just saw what you thought and felt what you felt."

She cocked a brow for a moment... then smiled through a chuckle and furrowed brows while I saw her thoughts. {Has be tired.} The feeling from her turned warm, but fuzzy. "I think you need to rest, Ralina. You must be tired."

With how flustered and confused I was, I couldn't help but scowl when she didn't take me seriously. "I am not tired, Aria! I'm actually seeing what you're thinking!" I huffed and closed my eyes and covered my ears, trying to calm down. I could still see her thoughts, though. I even saw what face she was making... She just shaking her head and frowning. {Maybe it's worse than I thought. Being in a metal box and seeing those humans couldn't have helped at all, either.}

I suddenly got an idea as my eyes snapped open beneath my hair and acted upon it. She'd started talking but I immediately cut her off, talking over her. "Maybe it's worse than I thought. Being in a metal box and seeing those humans couldn't have helped at all, either." I watched her face as I spoke, seeing as it changed from confusion to shock and then seeing sweat roll her cheek. I spoke every thought she thought as they came to me like some chattot, but with mind reading powers. "Wait, I just thought that!" Her eyes grew wider and her mouth drifted open. "Hold on, how is she saying everything I...?!"

I dropped my hands from my ears and stood there for a moment, looking at her startled gaze. "... It's because I see what you're immediately thinking. Sorry if that scared you, but I need you to understand..." I frowned and began to shiver as I bent my head low, eyes still on her... "I'm scared, too. I don't know what's happening to me..."

It took her hearing me say that before her expression dropped into a lip bitten frown, a hand grasping and rubbing at an arm. I couldn't stop myself from seeing what she thought. {I can't believe this is real... And I can't believe I didn't realize how serious this was. She's a PSYCHIC type! I should have guessed this was real! I hate when I don't think about these things!} The feeling from off her felt wet and burning. It was regret, I realized. "I am so sorry, Ralina. I really didn't know. And I should have known! You're a psychic type. ESP and mind reading are essentially related there."

My hand went to my temple again as I tried to ease the stress I was under just getting this new ability. Before too long, I shook my head and tried to smile. It might have just been a flat line. "...I don't think I can be mad at you for not believing me, at first. Because at first, I didn't believe me, either..."

Under a groan, I cracked up and smiled noticeably. "Okay, that just sounded stupid."

Aria came over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder, prompting me to look up as I did, losing the smile as I stared in confusion. She didn't say anything as she grin down at me, but her thoughts did. {Whatever the case, I hope it's not too noisy in my head. Don't wanna be a loudmouth without even opening my mouth.}

I paused for a minute, just looking at her as the feeling of warmth and comfort washed over me... I made a small smirk. "... No. They aren't noisy at all. Didn't I just say that I could READ your thoughts? There's nothing to hear."

Rolling her eyes a little, she sighed and wrapped me in a soft hug. "Well, I'm glad. I really am."

Any fear I had before was erased by the warmth I was getting from her, for the most part. There was still some about wondering where we were headed in the future, but I guess this was making it easier to handle.


	8. Chapter 4: At Least I'm Not Alone

The next 12 hours were ... long. I can't rightly describe how much time was spent just getting used to seeing and feeling the thoughts and emotions of not only Aria... but everyone around us. Who's was who's? What was the context? How many was I seeing? All of these, I couldn't rightly tell you.

There were a few thoughts that asked questions. {What the heck is wrong with these humans? I have something they want or something?} {Can't we just all go? There has to be one of use that took what they want... Right?} {Hee hee! I wonder when it's my turn!} I got mixed feelings from them.

Another few went, {These guys sound like a bunch of idiots! Nothing they say makes sense!} {I just wanna take each of these humans, stand them up in a line and throw a fist up each of their *****!} {Not even giving us anything good in here. I thought humans loved taking care of their pets. Arceus knows, that's what they think we are.} Every time I saw something like that, I tried to turn it out, because it almost burned me to feel.

Some just kept on saying that same thing all of us probably wanted. {I want to go home!} {I just want to see my family again...} {When do they let us out, already?!} {I'm sick of this cell!} That sort of thing made me feel their cold and choked sadness. It was probably the worst sort.

I even heard some human thoughts. {When is this gonna end? Feels like forever since I've stepped into the sun.} {If only we had proper quarters. Do working conditions have to be so strained?} {And that's five cups in one day. Yeah. I need a break.} ... A bunch of nonsense. All it did was make me curl into myself tighter.

...Then came one that got me. {As long as my daughter is fine, then that's all that matters...} It was calm and gentle... Warm... I gasped, my eyes flying open and gazing around at the walls of the metal room around me as well as a resting Aria. It was mom, but that wasn't clear to me until something... unexpected happened. She talked directly to me. {Ah... Oh, I'm so happy for you, dear! You've finally begun to truly unlock your power! Ah, but, I... Can you speak to me? I need to know that you're safe...}

I stood up in a hurry and smiled as big as I'd ever smiled all throughout that experience. "Mom?! I... Uhm... Wait.." I tried my best to focus my thoughts, shutting my eyes and holding my temples. If I could just focus on a thought directed at her, maybe she'd see it. {Mom! That's you, right?! I-I'm okay! I'm here! Where are you?!}

She responded. {Oh, baby! Thank goodness you're safe and sound! I-... Well, I guess I can't really tell you where I am, exactly. I'm sure you know what the inside of one of these cells looks like...}

I opened my eyes just to think the thoughts as quickly as one could, looking around with an out-of-place smile glued to my face. {Cold, dark, sometimes noisy and always bland? Yeah. I think I got that pretty loud and clear the first time I woke up here. In other words, this place SUCKS!}

{Hehe! Now dear, we don't think that sort of thing... But yes. This place does indeed need quite a few things. It's food is atrocious, at least as I find it. Is it the same for you and your dreaming friend there?}

I blinked a bit, having totally forgotten about Aria for a moment, there. I looked over at her and chuckled, spotting her curled into herself a few feet away from me and muttering in her sleep... Something about "no more berries for today", ironically.

I cocked a brow and chuckled under my breath and walked over to her, softly as I could. Crouching down over her, I spoke out loud. "Yeah, the food's been pre- Oh." I stopped and swat myself in the face before I touched a temple and thought instead. Thankfully, Aria hadn't woken up. She just tossed a bit. {Yup. The food here is just as awful. So awful that I think Aria's having a better time eating the berries she's talking about in her... sleep...} A thought occurred to me as my expression blankened. I couldn't see Aria's thoughts... {Huh... Actually, I wouldn't have known that if she hadn't been sleep talking... Why can I see everyone else's thoughts, but not her's? Is it just because she's asleep?}

{Hmm... Yes, I thought as much. You haven't advanced your abilities enough to see into dreams. You also haven't been able to tell that I have been trying to mentally hug you this entire time!}

That made my eyes bug while a goofy grin grew over my face. I began to sweat and blush over the thought... {W-wait... really? S-so ah... that's a weird thought to imagine. Uuuh...}

{Hee~. Well, it's true! What kind of mother doesn't want to hug their daughter in the very least after something so traumatic? Not one that I'd care to ever meet, that's for certain.}

I sighed heavily while my hand rubbed at my forehead. This could have been what Aria meant by me never escaping the mush. Still, I eventually smile and thought back. {At least, this power is now more of a blessing, but... do I really have to see everyone's thoughts? All the time?}

{That would get annoying, wouldn't it? No. It will calm down as you learn to focus your newly strengthened mind. Focus is the key to much of our kind's power. Focus gives rise to our greatest defenses and attacks. If you lost this, however, you'd only be hurting yourself. Have you realized that your mind immediately focused in on my thoughts because you felt I was familiar?}

I nodded my head. {Yeah. It was really easy to pick you out for some reason, after I realized you thought like how I always remembered you sounding.}

{It won't always be that easy. You have to learn to naturally shrink your attention down to the wanted range you desire. More specifically, you need to learn how to aim your attention. If you don't learn to concentrate in on what you want to hear, this current predicament won't change in the least, or will worsen when your mind's strength begins to increase and take in even more than the simple words on someone's mind. With my level of strength, I could tell you exactly what ... Aria, was it? I could tell you what she was dreaming, thinking and even her whole history. I can even do this, though I hope she won't mind it...}

Cocking my brow, I had no idea what she would do. A moment later, Aria twitched beneath me, then stirred over onto her back, making me gasp and jump up, backing away!

She climbed up onto her "feet" and stood there with her back to me for a while... Then, she turned to me and opened her eyes, though they looked a little different... not in shape or anything, just... They held a calmness. She grinned a little with a hand on her hip. "And this is called mind control. It's me, dear. It's Mommy."

I just stood there, gawking at Aria... or Mom, really, unable to believe this.

The controlled body of Aria was indistinguishable to the real, uncontrolled thing, aside from mannerisms and such. If she hadn't told me, I would never have known Mom had taken control. looking over the meloetta's body, she giggled a little. "Not bad at all. I suppose I could allow this, assuming she truly-"

I cut her off by hugging her tight. My body suddenly acted on it's own while I was still processing this, but I guess it was pretty clear why it did that. I missed my mother and even if this was Aria's body, that it was any measure of my mother, I was over the hill AND mountain. I didn't cry or anything, but my eyes were definitely wet like they wanted to, even as I stood there, smiling.

My mother smiled right back through Aria while she wrapped her arms around me and caressed my back. "I missed you, dear. I hope you were doing at least relatively well without me."

"I was... surviving." I pulled back from her and stood there, looking into Aria's eyes with big smile. "Aria really helped. I wouldn't have been anywhere near this okay without her. That she can talk to humans could have helped a bit, too. I've been really lucky to have her around."

With this furrow in her brows and the tilt of her head, she smirked nervously. "I almost wish that I could have had your luck. The room I'm in has these noisy types all around me. Placing myself within Aria has been relieving in that way, I suppose."

That prompted a question in my mind as I blinked... She could control Aria, so...

I raised a hand and asked, "Hey. If you can control pokemon like Aria, couldn't you take control of-"

"A human and use them to open the doors to our cells?"

I blinked, obviously surprised, but nodded.

Mom made Aria shake her head as she grinned with furrowed brows. "No. I have tried, already and it appears that human minds are not quite same enough for my mind to control their's. And since I can't use my psychic to simply make one of them open the doors because that the rooms are always set to attack us when we try to use moves, this is the extent of all I can do. And they don't even have pokemon on their persons for me to control outside of these cells, so even that was planned for. Sad, isn't it?"

Well, that's where that idea ended. I huffed and stomped the floor, folding my arms and shaking my head. "This is so stupid. These humans are too good."

"They have been at this for years, so they've probably planned for every single failure we could exploit, to a fault of which I've been unable to ascertain." She shook her head and grinned. "Enough of that, for now. We WILL figure something out. We simply need pay attention to everything we can. But for now, be at ease."

It took me a while to fully accept that and NOT want to bang my head against a wall in frustration, but eventually my head nodded and my mouth opened to sigh... I turned back to her with a small groan. "If you say so. I just wish I could see YOU again... and not just you talking through Aria.

The sad grin on her face said that she agreed. She then went blank while she took a hand of aria's and held it atop her head, sliding it from there and over my own and letting it hover a few inches above me while she giggled to herself and smiled. "Well. back to the previous subject, it seems that I have indeed escaped my noisy cell for a while, but in doing so, I've inadvertently lost a great deal of my size. I haven't been this small in twenty-seven years."

With a scrunched pout, I huffed and swat the hand lightly away from being above my head. "Yeah, yeah. You're STILL taller than me. Try being the runt. I'm always the smallest out of anyone."

Blinking at my attitude, she then covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. "My, but haven't I told you? I WAS the runt when I was your age."

I rolled my eyes at the claim and turned from her, folding my arms while I boredly stared into the wall. "Yeah, sure, that old parent cliché. You mean to tell me that you, a mega gardevoir among gardevoir, used to be a shin high pipsqueak to your mom and were even smaller than a normal ralts should be?"

"... Would it truly be so unbelievable?"

Hearing my friend speak in the very same tone as ever made it so hard to remember it was my mom talking through her and I just ended up blurting out, "Aria, I'm talking about mom, not you. I can believe you might have be-"

"It's still me, dear..."

My cheeks suddenly burned red while my eyes flew wide. I turned around and cleared my throat as if it were dry. "Y-yeah... wh-whatever! Point stands! How the heck can a foot tall nothing like me grow into a six foot seven inch giant ANYTHING?"

And that little moody statement brought on a glare I wasn't used to. Mom only got mad when we REALLY messed up, but that felt personal. "You are NOT a nothing!"

I shook from the loud, rough tone of my mother using Aria's voice, which was even worse than her own voice since it reached such a high tone... I stared at her as if I had been stuck, frowning. "I-I'm sorry...T-that's n-not what I meant to say..."

Aria's face eventually fell from the glare and frowned while she clasped her hands together and sighed. "I'm sorry, dear... That just slipped out. But... please. You are not a nothing of any kind. You are my precious Ralina. My little girl, whom I love more than even myself. I feel the same for your sister. I'd never want either of you to tear yourselves apart with self-hate."

My head turned down to the floor and nodded. "...I know. And... I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I think I do, now..."

With that said, She could only grin a little and chuckle. "Think, dear? I believe you meant to say, "know." But, I am glad." She looked straight at me after that, reaching out and placing a hand beneath my "chin" as she lifted my head up so that I was looking at her while I went blank. She smiled honestly. "I believe you will grow up to be something far more than I ever will be, but you must remember that I love you and will ALWAYS love you, no matter who you choose to be. Have faith in yourself and never let anyone, human or pokemon of any kind, tell you differently. Okay?"

I swallowed a little, before giving a nod and grinning wide. "Yeah... And.. I love you, too, mom... You're always gonna be the one I idolize, though..."

Aria opened her mouth to speak as my mother wished, but then closed it and smiled widely while a hand went to her cheek, feeling it warm as blush turned both red. "Yes. Well... You truly know how to make a woman feel like she's truly right... I'd kiss you, but Aria might... ... ..." She blinked for a minute with this deeply thoughtful look in her eyes, before shaking her head. "She can handle it, I think." And with that, Aria... No. Mom leaned into my cheek and gave it an honest kiss as she hugged me tight, one last time...

I just stood there and wrapped my arms around her once more, standing with her and maybe even holding my breath for a minute.

After this long, stagnant moment of embrace... she pulled away and gave me one last, wide smile.

I smiled right back and felt like I was expected to wave, so I did, half of me wishing that we could just keep talking for a while like this... But it was Aria's body.

Speaking of whom, Aria's eyes shot wide as she shuddered violently and gasped deeply, then blinked in a flurry.

I chuckled a bit and smirked a little half-heartedly. In a hushed tone, I spoke. "Had a nice nap?"

Her eyes spent a while blinking at me. Then she smiled a little as a slight pinkness remained in her cheeks from before. "Y'know, you have a pretty cool mom." She cocked her brow right after saying that, though. "But next time, I wanna meet her... differently. That was a little scary."

I could feel the sweat roll my cheek from my forehead as I gave her a nervous grin. "It wasn't my idea, but I can't say I regret it."

{Hope not. Because my head is starting to hurt.} Aria's thoughts as she was rubbing her forehead, even with that smile still on her face. I still can't do what my mom did, so I have no idea if that was just an aftereffect of mind control or if it was because we had been in that stupid cell for too long without actual light or clean air. Arceus knew that place didn't smell quite right.

I suddenly felt like my eyes were unusually heavy at that moment. I brushed my hair aside and rubbed at my closed lips, groaning. "I think I'm just gonna have to break down and get to sleep. I was awake the entire time you were out."

The meloetta lifted her head from her hand and nodded. "Fair enough. I get to sleep, you get to sleep. So, I'll watch the room while you do, wake you up if someone comes in..." {Was gonna say knocking, but yeah right. This place ain't civilized.}

I giggled wearily as I sat down where I was, grinning a little. "Yeah. Knocking is kinda not their thing. I guess they're too stupid."

...What? I'm gonna say what I feel. If you don't like my honesty, that isn't my problem. Besides, I'm not insulting you. I'm insulting them... ... ... Well, so far, I think you're fine... I'm still skeptical, considering. However, we're way off topic.

It made Aria laugh, then erk when she realized that what I responded to wasn't what she said aloud. Her laugh grew dry and low as she smiled in an exaggerated way, holding the back of her head. "Ehe... Take it easy on my brain, Ralina. I'm still a little fried from the whole... uh... you know..." {...Please? I'm still not totally used to all the mind reading and stuff.}

With a conceding sigh, I laid on my side to the cold floor, the chill immediately running through me with a shiver. "Fine~. I was mostly doing it to keep all the other people I was reading before out of my head..." I peeked an eye over at her as she came to sit down next to me. "I... hope you don't mind, but I'm going to focus on your thoughts, if I can help it, at least until I can completely turn it on and off at will."

A blank nod later, my friend spoke. "I get it. I can only imagine we're doing the best out of everyone in here purely because we got lucky to get paired with each other."

My face fell with a blank frown as I closed my eyes. "... You have no idea. And I'm glad you don't. Knowing sucks. And I had to listen to that for a full twelve hours until mom told me focusing on one would essentially mute the others."

"Well, I'll talk to you for as long as you want me to. Heck, I'll think talk you till you fall asleep, if that's what you want." {Because what are friends for, right?}

That made me smile. "... Yeah. We are friends. And... Yes, I would like that. Thinking usually puts me to sleep. Not as much as daydreaming does, but it's essentially one step below. And if only we could share daydreams."

{Phew, that would be nuts." I think she said that one both aloud and in her head, because I both read it and heard it.

I peeked an eye open and brushed my hair out of the way. "What? My daydreams are cool."

Aria smirked down at me and hummed. "Yeah, I don't know that, yet. Plus, I probably dream about different stuff, so I'd probably have a different opinion." {Unless it's a-} She seemed to go stiff as she erked and puffed out her cheeks. They turned red. {Nope, nope nope. I'm not letting you in on that one- go away bad thoughts.}

I blinked at her as my brow slowly raised... "What? It can't be that bad. If it makes you feel better, I dream about being a super powerful Gardevoir like my mom, but I don't think she can jump from mountain to mountain with the ability to cancel gravity."

Only her eyes meet my gaze as she keeps her breath held. {Okay, that's kinda cool, but seriously. Let's think about something else. Mine is weirder. Trust me.}

We took a while just staring at each other... before my curiosity subsided and I gave up, shrugging as I brushed my hair back over my eye. "Okay then, but I doubt it's worse than when my sister dreamt of being a trainer in love with one of their own pokemon."

That puff of air she sucked in finally found a way out when she started laughing and holding her stomach before falling over and kicking about! "A wha-hahahahaha! Ooohohohoo NO!" Did she really? Weeeell...

A wide smile stretch across my face. "YES. She did. And she made the mistake of telling ME."

It took a while longer after that for me to wind down and relax, but eventually reading Aria's thoughts simply made me tired. I fell asleep before the hour was up.

I can't remember what I was even dreaming of, then. It's vague at best, but I get the feeling that it had something to do with that dream I had of playing tag with mom and Kimmy again. Why would I dream the same thing twice? I don't know. Maybe I was homesick...


	9. Chapter 5: It's My Decision To Make

...

-SKREEE!- My eyes snapped open as I bolted up into sitting position. I spun around to look at the door and spotted a familiar sight! Two guards and a human in a long white coat! However, it wasn't the woman. The one standing in the doorway was a man of unmistakable old age.

He had this look to him that seemed both scrawny and yet tough with that lithe yet tall body of his. He was as tall, if not taller than the guards beside him. He had grey hair tied back in a knot with a beard that could make a mamoswine jealous with it's length and fullness. Dented up and scraggly as it was, though, maybe not. I didn't like that face either and not just because it was old and withered. He had yellow, pidgeotto eyes as sharp as they come, but weary with circles that seemed to be from long, restless nights. His eyebrows didn't look well groomed. Maybe that was the face of a man that didn't care about himself, anymore.

He wore a brown full-body, wrinkled suit under it all, complete with built in boots and black, latex gloves. ...It's called a Jumpsuit...? Where do you humans get these names? That one doesn't even make sense to me.

...Did he have a hunched back? No. That was the stiffest back I'd ever seen. Honestly, it looked like he had a board of wood where a back should be.

I immediately snapped my head to the side to find Aria, who started speaking that second with a glare in her eyes directed at that man from where she sat. [What do you want?! Why can't you people just leave us alone?!]

Turning to look back at the man with the same sort of glare, I noticed that he seemed mildly intrigued by her speaking their language, but I still had no idea what she said to him. He had raised his brows and tilted his head. [My, but if you veren't a Meloetta, I'd svear you vere a human being. You even haff our hands.]

She looked at her hands with a nervous glare, then threw them back down to her sides in fists with a grunt of anger! [Shut up! They're my hands, not a human's!]

The man sat there for a moment before he took a deep breath and then let it out with a calm sigh as he let his eyes close, then gestured to the guards in a dismissive wave. [Leave us for ze moment. I vant time with our ... Gäste. Vait for us outside.]

Still no idea what he said at the time, but it made the masked guards look at each other, then walk away, out of the room, which made me raise a brow out of suspicion. {I can't use intimidation. I shall keep to my vord.} A thought accompanied by a cooled and cautious feeling. I blinked when I realized it came from him.

Aria spoke, [What? trying to-] But, I cut her off by saying, "Wait." I turned to face her as she turned her head to look at me with a confused stare, blinking before a brow went up. "What, Ralina? This isn't a great time." {We might be in a lot of trouble.}

I thought for a moment, then I put a hand to my temple. {I saw his thoughts. He thought about something like... I didn't really understand it right, but I think he said 'I shall keep my word.' ... What does that mean?}

She gave me this weird look. "... I still don't understand how you can read a mind that should be speaking in another language to you." I gave an honest shrug. It seems that no matter what mind I'm reading, I'll always be able to understand it's thoughts. Maybe I'm using it's own knowledge as an add-on to mine so that I can understand it. That's how I think about that, anyway.

Whatever the case, she turned her head back to him as she folded her arms. [What does 'I shall keep my word' mean to you?]

With how his eyes grew wider for a moment, it definitely took him by surprise. [My my, but is vould seem zhere is no hiding anys'hing from your friend here. Most intriguing to see such a young ralts vith zhe gift of Gedankenlesen.] {... I will have to... ... ...}

Suddenly, I couldn't read anything but his attempt at concealing a feeling like being hot. I blinked in confusion and then focused harder. Nothing. And just like that, my ability to read his mind went out the window, which made me sweat. Without that, I might as well be deaf. I now had no way of knowing the conversation. "I can't read him anymore...!"

My friend turned to me in surprise, but it didn't take long to refocus her glare into that man. [Why and how'd you just shut her out? If you're hear to talk with US, then why not let her in? She can't understand this language.]

[Because you can listen just as vell as you can interpret. I am no fool as to let one into my head. I am zhis facility's head, after all.] He seemed neutral about that, all things considered.

Aria seemed to take that with a large amount of surprise, her glare turning clearly hostile. [YOU?! You're the one that came up with all this?! Are you also the one that told YOUR people to steal a little girl and her mother from their home?!]

And then his eyes seemed to shine a bit as he turned his head to look directly at me... smiling.

I couldn't help but feel lost and afraid of why he was smiling. At this point, I might as well be cold as a brick. I was scared and had no idea what had brought that on.

Then, he spoke... [Vell, now. So, you are zhe daughter of zhe civilized Gardevoir zhat constantly scorned me.]

I just stared. It... affects me more now, since I only know what he said back then from what I have learned after the fact. However, back then, I just felt incredibly lost. A nervous twitch told me to back away, so I did.

Aria stepped in front of me, much to my surprise. She glared him down. [Touch her and I don't care what the walls do to me.]

He took quite a heavy sigh as she said that, shaking his head with a frown. [Zhis is not vhat I came here for. Ve keep avoiding zhe point.]

She turned her head a bit from him, but kept her eyes on his face as she raised a brow. [Then you HAVE a point? News to me.]

He didn't like that, evident by the groan and temporary glare right back. He eased his eyes until they closed... then slowly opened them again, a relaxed stare replacing the anger. [Please, Listen as an old man speaks, o-kay? I haff come in peace zhis day. Zhe voman zhat visited you both 12 hours ago has pleaded with me to... not... use zhe two of you as subjects. I am very reluctant to say zhat zhis is my hope as vell, but zhat I may still need to, as older subjects continue to fail...]

The meloetta tightened her fists and I could see that she was trembling. With what? I don't know. The emotion felt like anger, maybe... but also something subtly cold and dark.[...You have a minute to explain what you're doing with our fellow pokemon... My immediate answer is no, either way.]

He furrowed his brows, which was weird for me to see since his face was one of natural intimidation. [Ve haff been hitting zhis same wall for a long few years, you see. Ve haff been purposely using only older pokemon, opposing preference of young ones. It is, as ve say, inhumane.] The furrow was gone after he blinked, then he turned his back to us as his lab coat fwipped behind him. [Zhe research ve are studying and progressing is zhe relation between human and pokemon DNA. More specifically, how zhat relation can be used to save lives on both sides. Mayhap, even give expiring ones zhe chance at life zhey couldn't haff othervise gotten chance at. Ve know vell zhat zhe result of zhis vill still yield... oddities. Transfiguration, mutations, changes. Zhe process is not a simple one and, so far, not a painless one. However, it can and Vill save more zhan a few- more zhan MANY lives in zhe future. Zhis may even become part of many humans and pokemon one day, as zhe process is capable of curing- nien... completely nullifying a multitude of illnesses and even benefiting ozher causes.]

All of that was promising and good and really SPECTACULAR... but well, Aria wasn't much less unwilling. I had no say, being I had no idea what any of that meant. Whatever the case, the meloetta eased up and got out of his way of me. [Go on, but don't try anything. And hang on a second.] She turned her head to me, simply saying, "I'm humoring this guy, for now. I'll tell you everything he says later, but for now? Just know that he's not taking either one of us, yet. He'll avoid us for a while, from what I have been told, and I'm guessing any other child stage pokemon, too. Though, it's not willingly and that won't last forever."

I couldn't help but feel very uneasy about how little that actually told me. So, let's summary: we were going to be held here for who knows how long until they just exhaust every other possible candidate for whatever they were doing to pokemon there. I knew nothing about the cause or the advances that could have been made back then, just that little gnawing bit of information that made me feel guilty. VERY guilty.

Aria turned back to him while I turned my back to her, even as she spoke to the human. [So, in short, you want us for what we could give you. You want what could possibly only be given to you by using a child stage test subject and you think that one of us could be the alleged subjects you're looking for. But there are still a load of things I don't get. I'm still on the "No" option, so...] She spun her hand a bit, face bored with laxness. [Go on. I know you want to.]

And the man turned around and smiled, bowing out of... I don't really know. Respect, I guess. [Zhat you are even humoring me exceeds my hopes.]

So, he went on while Aria folded her arms. I could see her thinking, {I've heard humans try to justify causes, but this guy really seems to believe in his cause. What the hell? Whatever. The "good doctor" better know I'm not making this possible.}

Dropping the smile, the human straightened his posture and started talking again. [I am not going to front you vith false pretense of being clean of sin, but I vill haff you know zhat by no means do I intend to stop after all zhe blood zhat's spilled upon our hands. I von't halt any of it. Not after ve haff spent 5 years of our own lives on zhis singular goal. And I personally stack 11700 years atop my back for my failures. Do zhe math. 117 failures. Maybe more, if zhere were pokemon zhat lived over 100. Do you zhink I can stop with that much overwhelming guilt on my conscience? I don't zhink so. Because one such life I haff lost already... zhe life I started out trying to save is already gone.]

Aria's glare broke when she heard what she did, barely letting out a grunt as if she'd been struck.

I wasn't so lost in my thoughts yet that I didn't hear that. I turned to see what that was about, then accidentally read into what was going on in her head. {Already dead? What? Then, you're true reason is gone, so why are you still doing this? Why so many dead for a cause that's not even there anymore?}

She squinted at him as if he were crazy. [What kind of guy keeps pursuing the same thing when they already lost what got them going?]

[... Zhere vas a man who did zhe same for zhe same reason. His exploits are what made me realize zhis vas possible. Vhile he did not succeed in saving zhe one he held dear, much zhe same of me, he created a pokemon zhat vas immune to disease and powerful beyond belief. And vhile I haff no interest in zhe prospect of power, it vas a byproduct of vhat he accomplished... by shear mistake. He could haff vell done it. He could haff saved his beloved. But just like myself, he vas too slow... He retired to a life avay from zhe science zhat dealt vith genetics and went on to lead a life simply studying zhe behavior of you pokemon...] He clasped his hands together as his eyes shut and took a breath, before continuing. [It could haff ended zhe same for me. But I had a realization. If I stopped, more vould die from zhe very zhings I first strove to help my dear Colette conquer. 5 years long zhis road has been. However, zhey haff been of progress. Yet, as stated before, I fear I can no longer gain substantial progress using older subjects. I haff had to come to terms with zhe fact zhat zhere is only one vay to continue forward from zhis point on... vith zhe interest of preserving as many lives as possible, zhat is. Use a young subject. A child stage subject. I considered using an... egg... but, zhat vould not yield zhe result I'm looking for. It would simply be creating a new species. It must be zhis vay.]

With all the man had said, only a stone wouldn't have been affected. A stone Aria was not. The uneasy furrow in her brow seemed to hammer in the fact that she felt for this man or at least felt where he was coming from. {...I can't believe I'm humor such thoughts. If what he said is all true, then maybe I should be the one.} A feeling of cold and dark...

That was a thought I couldn't stomach. I felt choked as I realized that meant she might try something very stupid, all because of what that man said. My eyes were wide and lips dry over fear of the possibility she might say yes. That meant I might never see her again if she did... and I'd grown very attached to her. Aria was my only friend in that place. I survived with my mind in tact that long, because I had her. If she was gone... that was it. I might lose it...

She instead said something that I know lied about what she really thought, but not at that time. [I'm sorry. No is still my answer.]

He remained frowning and clenched his hands tight to one another... before relaxing them and sighing. [...I understand... However, I can not simply free you from zhis cell, unless you comply. I shall give you time to reconsider.] He reached into a coat pocket and placed a small device on the ground. It was simple in design. Circular. Had one red button. It's use wasn't apparent to me, then. [Use zhis to call for me, if you change your mind. I vould hope for a sooner answer, but am fully prepared to wait.]

And then, he turned away and walked slowly out of the room. I watched him go, even as the door skree'd deafeningly in my ears and shut tight. Then, I turned to look at my friend, whom had already bent down to pick up the device.

As she brought it up off the ground in her fingers, it looked bigger and heavier, the size difference of her's to the man's a striking contrast. She stood there with a deep and lost expression on her face, eyes dull. {This is it... I've got to keep this close.. and... I have to be every bit willing to save everyone that I can, even if the prospect terrifies me... I have to do this... For Ralina most of all...} I knew it well. She'd sacrifice her self as a Meloetta... and possibly sacrificing herself in general, if they once again failed. Scared... I realized that was the emotion that registered from cold and dark. That feeling was still radiating off of her body...

I pretty much decided it, at that point. I wasn't about to let her do that... I don't think she ever realized I had read her mind. She was too fixated on the thing she had to do.

...Yeah, I wish she would have fallen asleep, that night... or day... whichever it had been it that dark place.

I sat across the room from her and watch her with a frown. Aria was up and just staring at that big red button like it had her under a spell, silent but very much awake. She'd even forgotten to directly tell me what had been said. Or maybe she was trying to keep it to herself. She didn't do a good job. I still had every word he said from her thoughts... and the true gravity of the situation proved my suspicions. I knew that I HAD to stop her. ...And the only way that was happening was if I knocked her out.

My mind was set. I got up onto my feet and walked my way over to her. It felt like it took an eternity just to walk the distance. I remember just how silent my mind had been in that moment. The only thing on my mind was what I had to do.

Only when I was right there in front of her did she ever blink and look at me, putting on this fake smile to cover up the fact that she was having a hard time. She stood up as she looked down at me and asked, "Sorry, Ralina. How long have you been standing there?"

I could hardly believe how long it took me to think this over... nor how long it took for her to raise a brow when she realized I was acting strange. "Ralina?"

...The next moment was quick. I didn't think I could put that much force or speed into anything. I smiled and said, "It's nothing." Then, I turned around and made as if I was taking a step away as she went to respond... only for me to turn on her quickly as my arm whipped out, wrist meeting hard with her head... I saw the look of panic wide in her eyes right before I hit and then watched as she crumpled to the floor in a heap, the button rolling from her hand all the way to the corner of the room...

It was a long moment of silence while I just stood there, looking down at my friend's face, eyes closed and mouth open as she laid there, unconscious... I could feel wetness run down my cheek. Of course I was scared, but it scared me more to think about never seeing her again... It's funny how you bond with someone so quickly when all you've got to share with each other is one small room, a few long conversations, some terrible food and each other.

As I walk away from her fallen body, I constantly wished that we were anywhere else. The fantasy of going back to my forest would have been perfect. Maybe even the one where we found Mallory's crystallized clearing. That would have been nice, too...

I knelt down and picked up the button with both of my hands, then stood up, looking at it. No one was stopping me but myself for the last few moments I just eyed the button. Aria was definitely out cold if she never got up after such a long few minutes. My mother must have been asleep, because she definitely would have tried to talk sense into me then if she wasn't. I didn't want to lose her, either. I was also reminded of how many pokemon I saw in the cages with us on the ride here. Every one of them was older than me, I bet. That meant that all of them could die to the experiments...

As I kept thinking of those sorts of things, I realized that I had many reasons to do what I did. For those reasons, I lifted my hand, finally, and pushed the button down with a click. It lit up lightly, then proceeded to flash for every second...


	10. Chapter 6: Cold and Dark

We... me and the doctor... met with each other when he came to the door that night. He had been expecting Aria, but when he saw me up and Aria collapse over in a heap, he thought exactly what anyone would about someone my age. That was the most surprising part to me, honestly. {... So young...}

I didn't return his gaze with my own. Mine just constantly looked to the side. I wasn't really thinking about anything. My mind was already made up, so there was nothing to think about.

He crouched down to me on one knee, totally serious as he asked a question I didn't understand. [Are you sure about zhis...?]

While I did finally stare back up at him, I didn't say a word. No. I just thought back to him. {You know I can't understand you. Just think and actually LET me see your thoughts. I can't read as much as my mom anyway, so I'm only gonna see the first thought, if that's what you're worried about.}

With his brows raised, he seemed taken aback... Then closed his eyes and nodded. {Interesting.} And there is was. Wet under reserve. I could finally read him.

With a sigh, I went on. {I want your name, before that.}

He nodded and opened his eyes with a slight smile. {I am called Gundsar Croff. As you might already know, I am zhe director.}

I just nodded my head, simply because I had nothing to express, yet. {Well, I'm Ralina. I'm gonna warn you about one thing to do with my friend Aria here. She might not be as young as you'd wish for her to be. At thirteen, I don't recommend using her. And I don't recommend it for another reason.} I lifted a part of my bangs out of the way of one eye so I knew he'd see me glaring into him. The man named, Gundsar. {You'll pay for it if this succeeds and I'm going to MAKE you pay. Same goes for my mother.}

I could feel his unease after that, even without reading him. It was written on his face in furrowed brows and a slightly opened mouth, as if he were going to say something. He closed His mouth and eyes for a moment, sighing before taking a breath... Then, he opened his eyes again, seeming weary after that. {... Understood. Zhen, I take it you are truly prepared for doing anys'hing...?}

I let my hair drop back into place over my eye, nodding my head. {I have reason to believe you won't try to kill me on purpose. I had a human friend long ago. You don't really remind me anything of him, but I can't say you are as bad as one could be. After all, you spent quite a while tearing into yourself when talking to Aria.}

The human visibly twitched, eying me. {How...?}

{Aria's mind was like an open book a while ago... I got every word of what the two of you talked about out of her.}

That seemed to make him smile a bit, raising a brow. {Vhat a clever child... You-}

"Save it."

He recoiled back as his mind grew silent, even though he couldn't have know what I was saying, vocally.

{Compliments don't change what you have to do to me, so just stop trying to stall. I know that's what you're doing.}

A pause ensued... Then, he nodded his head. {Perhaps I vas attempting to forget. You are quite a small one. I hadn't s'hought I'd stoop so low. But zhen... here ve are.} He rose up to his feet and stood high over me before turning his back to me. {I von't vaste zhis chance you are giving me.}

Dropping my gaze frontward, I walked beside him as he began to lead us down a long, massive hallway, gray in color with a red stripe down the low middle of the walls. Light came from over head to brighten the way, arranged in long bars of cold white. I was fully aware of how much larger he was than me. And yet, it felt like I was walking next to any other person. {I have no idea why, but I don't doubt that... I should, because I just can't bring myself to like you, no matter how you talk.}

While he walked at my pace, he chuckled a little, smiling with this guilty furrow in his brow as he shook his head. {It may be for zhe best. I am quite zhe terrible fazher...} His feeling never changed, so it was pretty easy for me to figure out what he was experiencing. Guilt.

With a huffed laugh, I conceded this. {Yeah, well, I don't know anything about Fathers. I don't even know who mine was. Or even what. So, I can't tell you how bad you did. I can at least tell that you cared, though...}

For a while, I saw nothing come from him as we walked. Eventually, he did think something, though. {I suppose I did...} I felt a small bit of warmth from off of him. I guess what I said comforted him in some way.

You've been wanting to ask me why I never tried to run away that entire time I was outside of the cell... I could tell by the almost silent humming around me that whatever kept our moves from working was still in effect. Humans didn't have any, so I guess they didn't need to worry. It was a pokemon specific crux. I guess it would have been funny to see him get electrocuted, too, though. Then again, they probably made it to where that wouldn't happen... maybe. I can't tell you if that would have worked on a human, since I never got to see a human around at the one time I did try to use a move... We went off topic, though.

After that, we had nothing left to think about. We just walked until we arrived at a very confusing, gray chamber. Machines were everywhere. Some were large, some small, some... complicated to explain. In the center of the far wall was this massive, clear capsule affixed and suspended over a metal, complex machine that served as a base for it. It was hooked up to either wires or hoses of varying size that extended to almost every machine in the room. It also had three ports on either side with tiny tubes connected to them. I don't know what they were for.

There were quite a few scientists here. One of which just happened to be the first one we saw. The unnamed woman that seemed to care what happened to us. She was the first to notice us and at first it looked like she was very distraught to see us... or more specifically, me. Everyone else stared at Gundsar before me.

While Gundsar went on to talk to everyone else, she wouldn't stop looking at me with the saddest frown while I saw what was on her mind. {Why you... Oh, why did it have to be you...} It irritated me, because I think she'd made peace with the thought of having to do what they had to do with me to Aria.

I won't lie... I was staring daggers into her. {Why NOT me? Would it have been any better doing this to Aria? Or my Mother, maybe?}

She gasped audibly and looked at me with pained shock. She hugged her clipboard to her chest and shut her eyes, taking deep breaths. {I-I... I didn't know you were... I-I'm so sorry...}

Again... I won't lie... I enjoyed making her feel that way, darkly enough. I'm sort of disgusted with it, now, because yeah. She had been the only one to care about us so deeply, first. It wasn't right.

I guess it ultimately didn't change anything. For all I know, she probably worked better trying to prove something and I still didn't really know what that was.

The "good doctor", as Aria called him, looked down at me after it seemed like everyone was clear on what had to be done. {Okay. Get atop zhe far machine and do not panic. It vill be a frightening s'hing, but eventually you shall simply slip out of consciousness.}

I didn't immediately do anything, instead taking a moment to breathe and close my eyes... before I sighed and opened them to walk forward, passed the white coats. All the while, I put out my thoughts, laying them bare on the open air, in case my mother or Aria was awake. {If either of you can see or hear this... please, don't be mad at one another. I did this for you both. I couldn't stand the thought of potentially losing either of you. I'm sorry I gave you that crack on the head, Aria. I knew you were going to try and spare me this, but I couldn't let you do what might kill you. And I'm sorry, Mom. I might have done the worst thing in the world to you by making this choice.} It was for any surrounding pokemon to hear. I excluded the humans, because they didn't need to hear that. I guess it would have been worth seeing how they'd handle a little extra voice in their head, but I digress.

If either heard it, they didn't think for me to hear it. Maybe that was just how much it hurt. I know at least one of them could have heard it.

I eventually got in front of the machine and climbed onto the base, rising to my feet as I turned to look around at the scientists faces. One thought, {Astounding. How did Professor Croff get her to do this so willingly?} Another thought, {Please, let this be the one.} One last thought went something like, {This is it. He finally did it. Now, we must succeed and win our future.}

I silently wondered how many times that last guy thought that to himself. It made him almost seem like a poetic idiot.

Gundsar came over to me and knelt down, reaching into the floor of the machine and pulling out a see-through mask of some kind with a black strap. It was connected to a clear wire that lead back down into the base with a stretching strap. He presented it to me as I took it in my hands and read his mind of what he wanted me to do. {Fit zhis onto yourself. It is meant to cover zhe mouth and nose and allow you to breathe. The strap fits around your head to keep it from falling off.}

I eyed the strange thing for a moment, but decided not to stall. I struggled with it a bit, being I had no fingers, but I fit the strap around my head and let the mask secure itself to my face. It was indeed pushing air into me.

Smiling briefly before he returned to a blankness, he looked down at the "floor" beneath me again and pulled out something else fitted to a clear wire and this small, plastic machine. It was a sort of needle.

I wasn't afraid of them, so don't worry. I just raised my brows at it, not that anyone could see that through my hair.

He looked at me again. {Zhis one, I must do. I vill be as quick as possible.}

It made me uneasy that I didn't get control of that, but it wasn't like I would know what to do with it. Giving him a sigh, I nodded my head and waited.

A second woman who's face I can't remember came to his side with a tray and knelt down beside him, presenting him a wet, white cloth of sorts as he nodded without looking her way and took it from the surface. He took th-...

... Whoa. Hang on. Why is your face white? ... Uhm... Do you want me to just skip this? I get the feeling YOU are the one that's squeamish. ... Okay, then I will.

After the uh... You know what was put in, he took a breath, standing up as he walked over to the machine beside me. He hit a series of square in, I guess, some form of password. The tube overhead finally, slowly descended down over me as I looked up with a gasp. I watched it lower into the crevasses in the base, sealing me inside when it locked in place with a -gchunk- and low frequency ring from the glass. I stared to the side of me at the professor, seeing if I could still get a thought out of him. It came. {Zhis vill vork. I haff never been more certain of our genetic sequence zhan I am now. Zhere are no longer any missing genes to vorry about. Even so, zhe next steps shall all need to proceed smoothly under constant supervision.} He paused in whatever he was doing with that machine and blinked... Then, he looked at me. {Zhe tube shall fill vith preservational fluids momentarily. Do not fear. It vill act as a nullifier for zhe need of food and water, as well as eliminate harmful bacteria wherever it lives. Zhere is no need to panic.}

The first thought I had of that while I remained blank and turned to face frontward I excluded him from hearing. {Fun fun. So, either it does what it should or I'm gonna drown.} ... I chuckled a little into a smile, even with the mask obscuring much of it. {Jeeze. When did I start to get so cynical?}

Suddenly, the capsule began to fill with turquoise liquid, beeps sounding out every second. I looked down at my feet as it quickly flooded over them in what felt like no time. No surprise, considering my size.

During the time it took to fill up around me, I constantly kept thinking of mom... of Kimmy... and of Aria... I wondered what this was going to feel like and if they were okay. I wondered when it would be when I finally wake up and how they might look different to me. I didn't know if I'd ever see my sister in particular again, because I'd never been out of the forest and somehow doubted Teleport would be enough...

The cool liquids washed over me in a matter of a single minute, even if the capsule was only half empty. My body tingled with the oddly refreshing sensation as I lost the floor beneath my feet, floating freely. I hadn't closed my eyes yet, but it felt so absent that I barely registered I was surrounded in the water-like substance. It warmed slightly over time, like someone turned up the temperature. It was probably the perfect temperature all-round.

This was about when I started to feel very tired and my eyes grew very heavy. I don't really know what made me fight it back for as long as I could, but I did. I fought off sleep for as long as I could, but before too much time passed, I started to hear the weirdest thing. _Let go... Relax yourself... Sleep..._ I don't know if that was really my mother's voice or if it was just my head going fuzzy with what I wanted to hear.

Reality was blending in with the dreaming world. I know the next thing had to be me seeing things that weren't there, because suddenly, every person there became dust and drifted away... Then the floor was next to dust and flake away, revealing white... After that, I realized I was back outside of the capsule and falling away from what remained of the scene... Falling into the light as I saw the room above... get eaten by what looked like some weird worm-like pokemon with a major horn problem... Or maybe it was just some weird worm, period...

Yeah. Okay. I was definitely messed up, at that point...


	11. Chapter 7: What Am I?

What could I possibly say about my time in the way I was? I don't remember anything that was very clear, for the most part. I warn you. What I can probably piece together for you is still some of the most messed up stuff I've ever... experienced... You still want to know? ... Wow. Afraid of needles, but not afraid of whatever the heck this stuff qualifies as? I don't think you have your head on straight, but fine. If you really want me to tell you.

I remember colors and strange, flashing images that made no sense. I can try to piece some of it together.

One image looked like a very clumsy, prisma-colored tree walking on it's head, shimmying the ground as it's roots walked the air like they were on that very same ground. And when I say it was walking the air, I mean that they walked on the word.

From that one emerged this other that immediately killed any silliness that happened to be present as the tree turned into literal static, then reformed to a multi-headed alakazam with no ears or eyes and it's tail had moved to it's chest while it's legs bent in this very unwelcoming, broken way. I think it asked me something, but it came out as very broken words that had no structure or sense. And then it's many heads all twisted in crunching, gross cracks and screamed progressively louder until they just... popped right off and revealed spikes that stretched violently outward at terrifying speed, making the sky bleed ... rain.

The rain turned colors as soon as one color could be recognized. Before I could stop thinking of the colors, the rain literally became the very names of which I saw and blotted out my "sight".

Eventually, there was this constant, loud gnashing of something unseen in the background. I don't even know what it was meant to be, since no image ever came along before it eventually faded into obscurity.

The next thing i can remember happening was color rushing at me from the void and sound like literally every garbled, twisted merge of a sound came together to form this unholy trash that... still kind of hurts to thing about. Images sped by me too fast to ever be registered. I tried to scream for it to stop, over and over and over, but every vocal tone was a drowning paper boat amongst the endless tauros-crap that sprung from this literal hell for sounds! The frustrated words that came next made everything else evaporate! "SHUT UP!" Sound, then color, then all-around imagery vaporized...

And then... white.

Again, everything was white. And by everything, I mean that I was suddenly treated to this very unnerving scene where I somehow ended up back in my forest... but everything looked like someone sketched it all with pencil. I hesitated to even try... but I looked down at my feet, just to make sure they were still there. Thankfully, that was the case, but they too were nothing but outline. I tested them by taking a step... I was able to move it and crunch invisible grass that was simultaneously "drawn" in. I took another step... then another and another until it felt naturally, then I looked away from my feet and up, looking around at what little there was to see.

See was the key word there, because there certainly wasn't much to hear. Maybe telling everything to shut up wasn't quite thought out, because then there was only the nagging feeling in the back of my head that something could immediately go wrong... but it never did. For once, what I was seeing was a constant.

Eventually, walking through the sketch version of the forest lead me to where I lived; our little clearing in the trees. There was the liver shaped pond that led out to the river in the corner. There were the huge trees that grew the most delicious pecha berries. There was the large, flat rock in the center of it all. There was the scent of it all in the air, bringing a smile to my face as I just closed my eyes... even though they technically already were close outside of dreamland.

...When I opened them up again, there were lines that formed a shape on the rock that took me a while to notice... Finally shifting my eyes over to look, I end up lifting my hair to see more clearly, pursing my lips in a puzzled manner.

They formed a figure. I wasn't too sure what they formed, being that whatever figure it was happened to have it's back to me... or at least that's what I was making sense of. They were obviously many times my size at the angle I was looking at them from.

Taking the chance of it being bait, I narrowed my eyes and let my hair drop with my arm, back into place as I walked up to the figure. A reasonable distance away for safety precautions, I asked, "H-hey. So, okay. I know you're just another part of this crazy dream. Either way, I'm really glad it decided to calm down long enough to let me have this. So... Who are you, if you even have a name?"

The figure bowed it's head as it started to giggle in a familiar tone of voice. It took me a second to pick it out as I cocked a brow, but it quickly sunk in while my eyes slowly widened beneath my hair. I could feel my mouth drop open as I uttered, "Mo...Mom...?!"

The figure suddenly gained a lot more detail, her body molding into her shapely form and her hair becoming apparent to me as it formed around her head. She stood up as her "dress" filled in over her legs. She turned her head to look at me... with a sketched version of my mother's exact face smiling down on me. "It's not my envisioned idea of seeing you again as I really am, but I shall definitely take it."

You can guess what happened. I hopped onto the rock as she was fully turning around and used it to jump into her arms and hug her around the neck! "Mom!" It wasn't Aria with my mother's size. It wasn't some voice in my head. It was my mother, real as could be. I could feel her soft skin against me and the warmth of her body. I nuzzled to the side of her neck. I couldn't cry for some reason, but my tone sounded like I was bawling like a baby when I said, "I th-hought I'd neve-r see y-ou again...!"

She hugged me right back while rubbing my back and shushing me. "It's okay, dear thing. I'd never do that and you know it. I'm always there when you need me, right?"

Of course that was true... I nodded my head and smiled a pathetic little smile that almost didn't look like one. Too... flat. I make myself out to be a crybaby back then, don't I? ... But, I guess that I kinda was.

When sense finally came back to me, I took several breaths and rubbed what wasn't there from my eyes and leaned back while I pushed myself back with my arms and looked up at her face. "But... why are you hear in my head? HOW are you hear in my head? I'm dreaming, right?"

She gave me a great grin while giggling a little. "I know that you remember this somewhere, dear. I know you can figure it out."

While I was very smart, I didn't really get it for a second or two... Then I grinned a little myself and let out an "oh". Tilting my head, I guessed. "This is part of the more advanced mind reading skills, right? You can't just see into my dreams. You can enter them." ...It suddenly makes sense to me, all these years later, now that I'm remembering this. That wasn't the first time mom got into my dreams... But then, why were the first two times kind of broken? ... I guess it doesn't really matter.

She nodded, telling me that my answer was correct. "I don't agree with you having knocked out your Meloetta friend, Ralina, but I..." She stopped and went blank for a moment, looking off to the side with her eyes alone... She sighed and shook her head as she frowned. "Actually... I won't lie to you. I CAN and CAN'T understand it. You are like myself, so I know it's well within you to think of yourself last. As the older of the two of you, it should have been her. I know that's incredibly horrible of me, but I can't help feeling that way."

I knew that was coming. I closed my eyes and let myself lay there against her. "Sorry, mom... I Know I should have tried a little harder to find a way to escape... but she was going to do this without even saying a word to me. She had already decided it without me. I... I couldn't let her do that. She's the only friend I have. And I was... it felt like I was going to be alone..."

She flinched inwardly as she nodded and looked away from me. "I... guess that was the obvious reason... You have always had that little phobia, haven't you?"

It's true... back then, I was so afraid of being alone... It's nothing to me, now, but it took... way too much pain to get over that fear... If I could go back and do it over again, I would have-... ... ... No. No, never mind... Maybe I wouldn't have...

Shame was definitely present in the frown on my face, my silence continuing.

Mother shook her head and smiled faintly while she took her seat back on the rock. "... Am I a horrible mother for being proud of you in some little way...?"

I shook my head. "I told you. You're the best mom ever. There's no way I'd ever say that. And to be perfectly honest with you..." I grinned a little. "I'm kind of proud of myself, too. I don't feel bad for it, either."

With a small laugh, she too shook her head before she leaned down over me and kissed my head between the horns. "Then, I'll keep it tucked safely away in my 'ways to be a good mother' section."

That brought my grin out even more while I nuzzled into her neck. "You better, dangit. I love that section."

... Hah! I have NO idea what made you think I EVER loved my mother. Gee. Maybe the multiple times I've been smiling while talking about her. Maybe the many times I told you I've hugged her. How about- ... Ha ha. Okay, I'll stop... You know, you're not half bad. You remind me of-... ... ... Let's keep going. Sorry. I'm just not ready for that comparison, yet.

... ... ... I could go on with this whole section for a long time, but I don't think it would be light out after I got finished. Instead... I'm gonna make something clear. While I was taking to mom, there was something I wasn't very sure about... Time. My perception of time was dilated at best... and totally broken at most, which might happen to be the reality.

Talking to her felt like it was taking longer or shorter than it really was going. I... have to think it was because my body was having a very hard time in the real world. I can't doubt it, because I can't see why I look the way I do now not being hard to adjust to. Yes. It was at that time, during this dream, when I started to change into what you see.

I'm sure of it, because there was something else I wasn't aware of just yet, but there was no way I could have ever known...

Let's save that for later, though. Getting back to a later point of the conversation, Mom had sat me down in her lap and at some point, this sketchy dream had taken on a crayon styled coloring. Green was back in the grass and tree leaves. Brown had returned to bark and dirt. Water was given this unrealistic shade of blue, though. And pink was back in the pecha berries. Our full colors had returned as well, but it was still very strange. Color in the real world was never meant to be so grainy.

I took notice of it almost immediately while I looked around and smiled with a cocked brow. "Jeeze, first it's all sketchy, now it looks like some tried to color it in. This dream is really-..." I had spotted the sky and the not-bright-at-all yellow sun with blinking eyes and blankness... "...REALLY weird."

Then, mom looked down at me with a confused furrow in her brow, even if she was smiling. I could almost see the sweat on her brow, only you don't normally sweat in dream land, much like you can't actually cry. "Uhm... there wasn't.. color before?"

I looked up at her while my hair fell back and blinked my red eyes, then raised my brow. "Uuuh... No? Couldn't you tell? I mean, I don't know what it's like in someone's dreams, but I'm pretty sure that should have been obvious if you're looking at what I see. Everything was a sketch before a little bit ago."

Her smile grew nervous as she cleared her throat, looking around. "I... suppose that you can always learn something new, hmm?" I didn't feel it at the time, but like before, I can't help wondering if she wasn't nervous about something else and not the actual lack of knowledge.

"Can I ask you just... one thing, mom?" It suddenly came out of me as I thought about it.

She looked back down to m as her face relaxed. With a smile, mom nodded and spoke. "Of course. You can always ask me anything, no matter what it may be."

I looked at the pond while I started to see a reflection of Kimmy in it... only she was crying. It wasn't what was actually happening, but I felt like that's what she must be like right then. I could feel the frown on my face as I furrowed my brows and breathed through my nose. "... Do you.. think Kimmy's at least alright? I want honesty, not comfort."

There was an immediate "oh" from mom as I looked back to her and saw her frowning deeply. ... She looked into my eyes and sighed, trying to smile as she confirmed what I felt. "Truthfully, I.. don't think so. She has always been the most emotional one between the three of us. Truly, she reminds me of your father. I wouldn't be surprised if, at this very moment, what you think she's doing right now is actually exactly correct."

So, I guess maybe I was seeing what could possibly be true in that pond. Either way, it tore me up inside to think about, literally making me hold my chest as I frowned and closed my eyes. "...I see... Then, the first thing I need to do after this is definitely find her. I need to get out, find her and hug her tight until she pops."

Mother smiled over me saying that, giggling as she rubbed my head, carefully. "Both of us need to." She paused for a moment as she put a finger to forehead, like she was trying to figure something out. Then, she suddenly turned serious, brows narrowing. "Ralina. I don't want to do this, but I need you to wake up for a little while."

It was a surprising comment. I hummed in question while my eyes flickered over again. "Huh? But why?"

She took hold of my little body and hugged me to her chest one more time at a jarring speed... or it would have been if it were all real to me then. After that, she quickly kissed my head again, then held me out so that we were eye to eye. "Please. Just trust me. And take a very deep breath whe you do wake up. Don't make me have to use scary face." She smirked a little playfully at the mention of that move.

And of course, the mere mention of THAT move was enough to scare me. "F-fine! Okay! But I better see you after this!"

"We don't need a deal for that~," she said in a ring and smiled at me, before I closed my eyes...

...

My eyes snapped open as my ears were assaulted with beeping non-stop! My lungs were BURNING!

I gasped in the deepest breath I could as I breathed through what had to be the mask around my face, holding my throat and taking more steady breaths while the beeping started to slow and then eb in frequency. Then, it stopped all together with a more pleasant ring. As I breathed and calmed my racing heart, I looked around at what had been scientists racing around outside my capsule all seeming to look at me and gawk, all panicked movement stopping as they stared. When my sense was back, I realized that I was still floating in that turquoise liquid.

One was the woman, hand on her chest as she looked faint with how hard she was breathing and how white her face was. She smiled when she saw me breathing as I was. {Oh, thank the great and good trinity. It seems she fixed the problem herself...} A feeling of cooling wind. Relief, I decided, even with my mind still a bit frayed from the intense moment.

My eyes still refocusing, I tried to think to her as best I could with my crazy destruction derby of a thought process. {What just- Why were- You..." I stopped for a moment as my eyes shut tight and I let out a silenced grunt. {Focus!} I reopened them to her and focused in on her more successfully while it seemed that wrecked thought process had her confused, blinking as she pointed to me. {Y-yes! Whatever. That was me. What the heck just happened and why?! My lungs have never hurt so much!}

The intensity of my thoughts made her flinch as she stared in at me and walked closer, talking aloud... Yeah. Like I could hear that in a glass tube.

I was still extremely tired and the stuff I was floating around in was definitely the cause of that. Shaking my head as I thought, I told her, {Stop talking. I can't hear that OR understand what you're saying anyway. Just think and I'll see it.}

The woman blinked, seeming to not understand for a moment. {Think...? Wait, so she can only understand my thoughts? That-}

{Yeah. I don't totally get it, either. Just tell me what's going on? You're obviously not done with me, being that I'm still in this tube, so before I can't keep myself awake anymore, mind telling me?} ... It took me a bit to notice, but it seemed my hair was longer than before, much to my surprise. I lifted my free hand up and... grabbed it... with fingers... I blinked wide and gasped as I looked at my three new fingers that formed an odd hand, grabbing my hair... It barely had resemblance to anything human... it was more like a gardevoir's hand, but totally white...

{I see that you've noticed how different your hand is, now.} My eyes slowly drifted and focused back on the woman, who was humbly smiling up at me, before the smile turned into a frown... {You nearly died from a sudden slow in heart rate... It was brought on by the extreme transformation you're body just went through, both in size and other ways, but thankfully, this should be the last one that causes so much strain. I knew they would be great and many, but never any so changing. It's a side-effect of the method's unrefined state. I'd hoped that you could have kept your original form...} She bowed her head and thought, {I'm so sorry...}

... I looked down at my body and observed with shock what had happened otherwise. I was very different, now... My legs looked longer, even if my skin still seemed to work the same way. Thankfully, it was still white. My body was slim and more formly, however. The skin around it seemed to have tightened and fit to my structure.

I let my green hair go as it slowly drifted back over my face. as I observed how long it had gotten. It was not the length it is now, but it did reach my newly widened shoulders- not by much mind you, but still more apparent than whatever I had in my previous form. Even my bangs were that length, which was a hassle to see through when looking forward, much as I figured out earlier. Nothing like light bangs that had cracks to see through. This was thick and seemed heavy.

I felt my face with my hands, which was pretty weird. At least that was mostly the same. The only thing that seemed to change was... that I had this nose and my chin was a bit more noticeable, even if my head would still look nearly round when someone was looking dead at it. I couldn't see it, though, so how was I supposed to know? I felt my hand around my still pretty slim neck. That wasn't too different, at least. Still, that those creepy hands could nearly fit around it was... ugh...

... Come on. How can you NOT? These hands ARE creepy when you're not the right evolution. You can't tell me otherwise. ... ... ... Well, I'm glad that at least one of us thinks so, but I don't. Cute? Really?

Back to what I was saying... Taking my hands and feeling the top of my head, I found my horns. They were still in the same position as ever, but were somewhat larger and feeling them felt strange... good, but also unusual. I had never felt anything from my horns before, but I also hadn't felt them since getting the mind reading abilities. It was that. Because of their awakening, feeling was different. I was different...

I looked back up just in time to see the woman backing her way into my tube with a small -thump-. I looked to where she was looking, but honestly... consciousness was starting to crash again. My eyes were squinting just to see what was in front of me. It was Gundsar walking in with... a man I would come to hate. I only had enough consciousness left at the time to figure out his face. A black haired man with an angular face, full eyebrows, a mole on the side of his jaw and silver eyes that felt nothing but cold as they stared into me through the corners. He smiled in a way that crawled under my skin and felt gross...

The last thing I could see before my consciousness faded out was him starting to say something to the good doctor... I hate that man, still, to this day...

You know what happens next. A crazy flash flood of weird images, but this flood was broken up by direct intervention from my mother, who literally blew them away with a simple flick of her arm, clearing darkness and images, one and all, leaving us back at "home", only the color was now proper and had shade to it. It seemed more like someone cell-shaded everything, though...

...I don't know WHY my mind registered what I looked like out there so quickly to be what I was, now... but I wasn't a ralts anymore... I can't say that I have a name for what I am. I was on my hands and knees on the grassy ground, shivering and sweating. My eyes felt like they could pop out of my head and my mouth was open in stunned horror... I was looking at my hands... Those three digit hands that were clutching blades of crumpled grass.

After dropping her arm back to her side, she came over to me eyes wide in deep concern as she dropped down to her knees beside me. She furrowed her brows and placed a hand along my back... It felt discomfortingly smaller to me. I was nearly Kimmy's size, then: about... 2'1", I guess. My mother shook me a bit. "Ralina, speak! Please, baby!"

I didn't. Instead, I got up and shakily walked my way over to the pond, as if it held an answer for me... When I looked into the pond... I didn't see my reflection... How would I? I had no idea what I might have looked like in the real world, other than the bodily details I'd registered. It tortured my little mind not knowing what I looked like. It could have been insecurity, easily. I know that I thought they were turning me into a monster...

Suddenly, my mother's hands grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around. I could see how scared she was with how she shook, a frown on her face. "Please... please, speak to me. I-I'm sorry... I knew it would hurt, but I just thought you could handle it..."

Seeing her like that was more shocking than even what happened to my body. She was never so... scared... I finally took a breath as I looked away and at the grass below my feet, closing my mouth and forcing myself to blink into a more natural expression... I looked at her and .. well. I spoke. "W-what's.. happening to me...? My body looked... A-are they turning me into some kind of... monster?"

She seemed to calm down, even if she still looked so sad. "No. There isn't a monstrous thing about a little girl, no matter what she is."

It irritated me to hear that. I scowled and bore my grit teeth. "BUT I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I LOOK LIKE TO YOU RIGHT NOW!" I gasped as her large hands suddenly pulled me up and into another embrace, leaving me wide eyed and speechless...

I looked up at my mother's face, seeing that a calm blankness returned to her face. "I don't want to hear that ever again... You look like my daughter... You will ALWAYS.. look like my daughter, because you are my daughter, Ralina dear... You are no monster..."

I frowned, feeling weak and bruised like someone just got done kicking me... I just wrapped my arms around one of my mother's arms and held tight to it, closing my eyes and biting my lip. I honestly wanted to believe her. I knew who I was, but I didn't know if that made me any less of a monster...

I still didn't know everything that had happened that day, nor what day it was...


	12. Chapter 8: Unforgivable

_**Chapter revision made 8/19/2018**_

* * *

... I'm going to ask you again... and I want you to look me in the eyes when you answer...

You've listened to all of this hard and sad stuff from me. You know it's not going to lighten up for a while... This is, perhaps, the worst parts of my past and something I can never go back on. And if I'm telling you the truth, I don't think I'll ever want that forgiveness... This probably makes me pretty horrible... Do you still want me to keep going? I want a definite yes or an absolute no... Either way... Nothing calls you to hear this anymore...

...You might... well end up regretting that answer...

xXx xXx xXx

... I don't know how long I was hugging my mother. Everything is wrong when you involve time with dreams...

The breath I took next was slow, but steady. In and out. In and out... My eyes... My true eyes crack open as my vision returned to me. My hearing is close behind as I register a near silent weening sound around me... I am back in that stupid lab's grey walls. I look down as my feet come to rest on the cold metal of the pod, standing there while the liquid around my body quickly drains down into a filtering outlet in the middle. Sense was slowly returning to me. Very slowly. You humans call that jet-lag, I think... Or maybe I don't know.

I could make out the scientists from before, but... none that I had personally associated with, anymore. Gundsar Croff and the woman were not among them, but the guards that had been nowhere to be found when I first went under were either in the hallway or in the corners of the room opposing me. That man that I remembered from waking up in the pod that one time... Yeah, he was there, too, smiling that skin crawling smile of his... There was just something very wrong about that smile... His eyes still had barely anything to them. Hardly light enough for a soul, at any rate.

Looking at him now, I realized he was about average height for an adult human male. His clothing looked more same-ly to every other scientist in that room. He wore a blue shirt under his white coat and tan long pants with heavy, brown shoes. As he was slipping on black, latex gloves, I noticed they were larger than what I was used to by a bit with long fingers.

When the capsule finally drained entirely, I reached up to my face with my free hand and lifted the breathing mask off, the band slipping from my head as my hair fell free, long enough to reach my backside and straight as straw. As I thought before, all of that length made it quite a bit heavier, especially wet. I swept my bangs away from my eyes and over my shoulder, the fluids in my hair flying against the glass, just in time. After a -clack- from the locks releasing, the glass began to rise up from around me. That stupid weening final stopped.

I looked at the other arm. I didn't want to humor the thought of this man pulling it out, so I did it myself, hissing through the sharp pain that followed before opening my eyes to the smallest puncture hole in my wrist, bleeding ever so slightly.

Dropping the... you know what... to the side, I listened to it clatter right from the edge of the base as the glass finished rising from around me.

The man walked over to me, seeming to admire what I was as he looked me up and down. As he arrived in front of me, he subtly grasped my jaw line, much to my grunting discomfort while I glared him down, even as he forcefully turned my head to look it over. [Hmm... The subject seems to have taken very nicely to the changes.] As he released my jaw, I rubbed the soreness his grip left in my skin...

His mind was a steel cage. I couldn't get a thing off of him, even though his fellow scientists were all too giddy to share theirs. I looked at all of them to see what they all thought of this. Some were transparent with a clear discomfort about his roughness. Others were reserved in face alone.

{He'd better not damage Croff's work.} {I hope this means that all this is over.} {Does he have to be an sicko even now? What the hell was that?!} {Is this guy just gonna stand around poking this thing all day?} Those were their thoughts.

He'd done just about the same sort of thing with my arm, side and leg, making me feel incredibly uncomfortable as he either firmly squeezed, moved or rubbed these parts... Mgh... Just.. thinking about it makes me nauseous.

At that point, I was trying to grit my teeth and bare it, so he would let us go- Me, Aria and mom.

He turned back to face his colleagues and grinned wide, crossing his arms behind himself. [We've done it. The first of many to come is a complete success without flaw. You can all gain pride from your pain-staking work. It has finally paid off with the bountiful fruit of your labors.]

Despite the conflicted feelings each had from before, now it was a resounding applause of claps from each of them.

... It was all very wrong to me, standing there with a very uncertain glare directed at the entire scene, my mouth pursed open and at a loss for words, because I couldn't understand a thing. I looked into their thoughts again to see what was going on.

{It's over! It's finally succeeded!} {A pokemon- nay! A creature which carries both sets of DNA...! This is a remarkable day, indeed!} {What should we even call this...!} {Disease may truly one day be nothing but a minor inconvenience... I can hardly believe this. It must be fate that I'm here, today.} ... It was incredible for me to even understand that I'd indeed been through all that heartache and it wasn't for nothing...

My disapproval turned into the slightest bit of pride when I realized that. I grinned ever so slightly. It was strange, really. Why was I happy then? For them...? Or was I happy because it might all actually be over?

Then... it hit me again as I looked around. Two faces were missing from this picture that I'd sort of counted on seeing again as my grin ebbed away. I was now standing there in a confused blankness... Gundsar and that woman should have been there. They were the only ones I actually half cared about. With all that concern the woman showed me and Aria, she wouldn't have just quit and gone home before seeing me out of that tube. That and more could be said about the good doctor, who was the one human I might have started to like in there...

As much as I didn't want to, I looked over to that man again. {H-... Hey. You.}

His head seemed to perk. "Hm?" He turned back to face me with that smile of his, brows raised while those soulless eyes seemed every bit as wrong as ever. [Was that you? I don't believe we've been introduced, you and I.] Not a word did I understand.

Rolling my eyes, I thought back to him. {Yeah. I didn't understand a word of that. I can only understand your thoughts, just like every other human here.}

With a wide smirk, his eyes grew bored. {I know. I was only teasing you. I remember the doctor telling me of this mental connection you and your mother formed with him.}

He had just started making sense to me and already I didn't want to "talk" to him. I narrowed my eyes as I refused to respond.

With a smiled huff of laughter, he pat my shoulder. {There's no need to be so passive. I apologize for my joke. There. Now, do tell me, my little subject. Whatever could you need?}

... I shook my head, unable to make sense of that guy's weird way of thinking. I couldn't tell then if he was being condescending or actually communicating. I'm very certain now about which of the two he was... I asked, {I was wondering where Gundsar and the woman he's usually with are. I don't see them.}

And that rid him of his smile as he seemed to look disappointed. {Ah... I see. This is born of their absence. Well, you need not concern yourself with Gundsar Croff and Mariss Aklin. They have both retired due to overwhelming stress and fatigue from too many years of the same endeavors.}

{R-retired...?!} I just stood there with a betrayed and outraged glare on my face.

He nodded as that creepy smile returned, as if thinking what he did next filled him with a sense of joy... {Yes. Truly a shame. Such incredible intellectuals eventually broke under the pressures a job like this force upon the mind. I don't claim to understand it, but dear Gundsar said he couldn't handle it if you turned out to be a failure, too. After the scare you gave us 2 years ago, he feared that outcome even more. Such a foolish man. Maybe the death of his daughter was much more of a toll on his psyche than we thought. And, well, Mariss couldn't go on with the job without the one she'd enlisted to help. Luckily for you, it appears they were unneeded to finish the job.}

... What he was telling me had to be the basest of lies, but then I hardly knew either of them. What proof did I have that he was lying to me? Of course I didn't believe him, but I didn't think back to him about it. Instead, I kept my thoughts to myself on that part...

Then, something struck me as I thought about what he said... Had hereally just said two years ago...? My eyes grew wide with the implications of that statement. My gaze snapped back to him as he was turning away. {Hold on a second!}

... He turned back around to me with an honestly confused look on his mug. {Yes? What now?}

I didn't really try to pretty it up. I jumped from off of the machine, finally landing on the cold floor as that seemed to alert the guards, then squinted into him in disbelief. {... Two.. years? How long did you people keep me in here?!}

Obviously, the guards had begun to enclose, but a simple stopping gesture from this man's hand froze them in their tracks. They looked at each other, then backed themselves back into place.

With a sigh, the man grinned and looked into my eyes. {It has been... 5 years.} ... It felt like someone just stabbed me in the gut...

My head rung as my eyes grew wide and my mouth drifted open... I dropped my unblinking gaze to the floor and tried to take deep breaths, just to keep myself from losing it as I shook.

He saw that and wasn't impressed, I suppose. He turned to one of the guards and spoke. [Inform Joy. There may have just been mental scarring. It won't do for the first living subject's mind to break.] The guard saluted with a fist over his heart, then jogged his way down the hall as the man's eyes returned to me...

I was just trying to keep my head from rolling right off of my shoulders and onto the floor. Five whole years had passed since I'd been outside of that tube... I figured my mental time was messed up... but it felt like it couldn't have been more than a week's time... My horror didn't end with that... I truly wish it did. I wish I was talking about some nightmare I was having... It was the one thing I couldn't take seeing in the many cluttered thoughts going on in this room...

{It's a relief things turned out the way they did. It could have ended the same way it had with her mother...}

... My eyes were already as wide as they could be, but now, it was like sound just cancelled out... My eyes drifted to the one that thought it, this woman with red hair and blue eyes that was smiling, before she suddenly lost that smile, realizing where I was looking. {H-hey... Is she looking at.. me?}

{... What was that thought...? Why did you just have that thought...? My mother... What happened to my mother?}

Her eyes widened as she gasped and everything suddenly grew very quiet for everyone else as well as they turned to look at her. {Y-you... you saw what I-I was... Oh... oh no... Th-that wasn't...!} [I-I didn't mean to...! She...]

The man seemed to realize what was going on as he both saw my face and heard her speak. He turned and looked at her with a glare. [What did you just do? What happened?! Did she read your mind?!]

{What happened to my mother...?!} He froze and turned to look at me again. He was unnerved and sweating to see me looking directly at him like that... He swallowed the collecting lump in his throat.

The guards ignored his wishes and gathered around me, whipping out small guns from plastic shells hooked up to their legs.

With hands held up, he closed his eyes and sighed through a frown... Why was he frowning, I remember thinking... {I guess that would have happened before long, anyway. I'm the only one clever enough to keep his thoughts to himself...} With a shrug as if it didn't even matter, he turned away from me and shook his head. {You see... that idiot, Gundsar Croff, and his assistant... had already failed the earlier subject's conversion long ago... That subject was your mother, of whom told him that she wouldn't allow him to use you or that Meloetta friend of yours, so she begged him to take her as his next subject instead of the Meloetta, whom he originally intended to use first. You see, she had hands, an uncommon train in Meloettas... One that might reveal a latent genomic reason for being there. Hidden human DNA strands mixed in with the rest... But, your mother insisted we use herself first... It seemed to be going smoothly, but like with you, her breathing suddenly faltered and soon her heart rate as she began to relapse... However, unlike you, she was not able to recover from the relapse... She died shortly after. And how utterly confounding... and yet somewhat ironic that her brood, whom she was protecting so stubbornly with that little friend, lived when she, a well developed adult, died. No defects, no DNA strands negative. No unmatched genetics.} I could feel his grin as he thought up his next words... {Please, don't try to do anything. You will only hurt or kill yourself trying to act thanks to the power capper... and that... will only lead to us needing to repeat this successful process, now that we know it works. Only now, we know it works only on child stage pokemon. That certainly makes things quite a bit... easier, really."

...Can you imagine the rage I was feeling in that moment...? I'll help you...

Something, somewhere in the hall just let of the loudest electrical -zzzzit!- as the lights suddenly flickered, half of them popping and gaining the yelping alarm of every man and woman in that room.

Even that despicable man had been taken off whatever high horse he was on, looking around the ceiling at the busted lights as his grin ebbed away... {... Wh-what did...? H-how could it have...?!} He looked back to me with increasing horror as his eyes grew wide.

My power spiked enough to overload and bust that "power capper", as he called it, that kept us from using moves... I could have teleported away in that very moment, but I had a... _better_ idea... I focused a mental attack on the guards surrounding me with Confusion as they all started groaning out in pain, shuddering and dropping their guns as they clutched their hands to their heads and started screaming. They tried to back away and they shivered and writhed, but it was a bit too late for that...

Each of the scientists, the man I'd been speaking to included, either began to back away or run out of the room, frightened by what they could not comprehend.

I clenched my hands into fist as the screaming suddenly went silent from the guards and these low -plop- noises could be heard... Their arms dropped to their sides like jelly before they all fell to the floor like sacks of potatoes... I'd killed them by literally crushing their brains inside of their own heads...

... It felt... I can't lie... It felt very satisfying to finally kill some of the people that took us from our home...

The man saw them just lying there and not moving. He was sweating and he knew that I wanted _him_ next.

I was looking right at him with a hating scowl on my face. I didn't waste words or thoughts. That part of me was just... gone. I only wanted what he could give me... His life. I figured out how I wanted to take what I wanted, too...

Sharp points suddenly materialized out of thin air, dark pink in color as they spun in place, misshapen and lopsided maybe... But they would do...

He gasped and tried to turn and run, only for me to throw a hand forward as the points shot him in the back, stabbing straight through clothing, skin and muscle! He screamed out loudly through intense pain, falling over and bleeding through his coat. The white article of clothing was quickly stained red in spreading areas before long as he immediately grew still... and then, silence... Every remaining scientist in the room had long since ran away, leaving me in an eerily quiet lab with a dead man...

The move I just used was Psyshock. I... think my kind can learn it, yes, but not naturally...

There was no way that I'd just leave that there, so I turned myself around to look at all the machinery that helped to make me into... well, what you see before you... and materialized many more of the same sharp points, this time shaped a bit better than before. They floated there before the machines as I turned and walked into the hallway, then turned back to take one last look at the room... I wanted it all GONE...

I thrust my arms forward, sending countless points through each of the machines and filling them with holes. As the capsule was torn apart, I watched in a particular satisfaction. It's glass casing utterly shattered and the hole-riddled base burst into flames, catching every other short circuiting machine on fire in the process. The room had been turned into a raging inferno before long.

Dropping my hands back to my sides, I turned and left, hearing more blasts behind me from exploding machinery, some metal bits even flying out ahead of me before clattering the floor and coming to rest.

For what I did next, I thought to every creature in that building, excluding the humans, and told them this. {To every pokemon trapped in cells, I've broken the machine that was keeping us from using our powers. Do as you please. You're free. Just be aware that I am going to burn this place to the ground and bury the humans with their toys.}

{R-Ralina?!}

I stopped in my tracks and stood there for a moment... Aria... At least she was okay. That's what I remembered thinking... I tried to remain silent from her as I continued to walk. A human guard ran right out in front of me from the crossing hallway with a loaded gun and -BANG! He fired at me... only for the bullet he tried to fire to get stuck in the gun, much to his confusion.

He tried to fire again! -BRANG!- As the gun went off again, the barrel blew apart with the gun in his hands as he cursed and threw what was left of the gun away. And just like that, I lifted him into the air with Confusion as he screamed and tried to squirm out of it. I whipped my hand aside and threw him at the corner formed by the intersecting walls, his back landing first as he slammed the wall, spinning limply and soundlessly into one of the halls before hitting the floor and rolling a ways...

I continued to walk down the hall, remembering my mother's face... How had I been talking to her all this time after she'd been dead...? Had she been speaking to me from beyond...? Had I just gotten her mixed up with another gardevoir who had a daughter in here? Was that even a possibility? Those were my thoughts, even as I had gotten done possibly breaking a man's back against a corner wall.

{Ralina, I know you're out there! Why won't you let me in?!}

... I kept walking as tears streamed down my cheeks. My expression was still a glare, but the more I thought about the pokemon I knew five years ago, the more I recalled... My mother's been dead for five whole years and I've been talking to her in my own head...

When I thought of it that way, I felt like I was making her up in those moments. I felt like I was crazy. I could have well be with how I was right then... I kept replaying everything in my head over and over, just trying to spot inconsistencies... She hesitated once out of it all... She hesitated when she was telling me that her mind reading powers allowed her to act upon my dreams... Did that mean she lied or that I just rationalized it...? But... then what about the point when I was so disgusted with myself that I thought I was a monster...? She comforted me instead of shunning me like I would have... Did I just want to be comforted like that...?

I held my head as I continued to MAKE my feet move. My breathing became erratic...

{Ralina... I'm just worried about you... Please answer-}

A scream of pure rage erupts out of me long and hard. I threw my hands away from my head, running down the hall at full speed with those awkward legs, psychic power radiating right from off of my body in a pink aura. I was in a full-blown blood haze.

One human scientist rounded the corner of the hall at the wrong time. They gasped and tried to turn back, only for me to tackle into them head first in their stomach and slam them against the wall as they coughed out in pain, winded. hopping back from them, I landed on my feet and thrust an arm forward as Psyshock shot out from my aura and stabbed into them time after time after time. They let out a gurgling moan and before long, they began to slide down the wall, smearing it with blood and revealing entry holes. They were just about sitting on the floor, only to be caught in my Confusion and lifted into the air.

I snapped my head to the side as I heard the clatter of booted feet coming toward me, armored guards becoming visible after only a moment. With the flick of my wrist, I quickly threw the dying human from my Confusion as it slammed into both guards and sent them falling back onto the floor. Before either could react fast enough to get up, A Psyshock crystal shot into both of their masks, shattering them into their faces and right through the back of their helms. They went limp. It was an instant death...

... Upon a slightly closer inspection, I realized that one of the guards wore the same green mask one of my original captors wore... I couldn't have smiled, even if it felt good... Honestly, that it felt this good to do something this incredibly horrible... was nauseating in it's own right...

-Tack!-

Something smacked me on the back of the head as my eyes grew wide. A red aura suddenly overtook mine as whatever it was shocked me as I grunt out and groaned throughout the duration of it... until it just vanished, leaving me extremely irritated and growling as my anger welled up again, my aura flaring back up. I suddenly whirled around and scowled distantly up at the red-headed woman from before, who shook the second her blue eyes found my reds. Her hand had been outstretched... as if it had thrown something...

[Error!]

When I heard the human-sounding word, my eyes instantly flicked down to... a pokeball. Red and white. The most common form they come in, kind of like your's.

The ball's button was blinking red every half second as it went on to... speak... just like your's did. And using the exact same words, though back then I didn't know what they meant. [Unable to retrieve! Target must be a pokemon! Please, do not use this Pokeball on humans! Thank you!] And then, it just stopped flashing, sitting there...

I glared backup at the woman, just as she then raised her hands above her head and dropped to her knees in a heap. She had her head hung and was sniffling like a pathetic little child. [P-please, don't ...! I want to go home!]

... I could have done it. It would have been easy... But... I don't know why right then... I just... I thought back to that boy I met when I was very young. What would he think of me if I killed this woman? ... Would he fear me...? My eyes softened from their glare and a frown took it's place for a moment. My aura even died away... I think it was maybe then that I realized I still had a heart... ... I bit back my sympathy and growled with grit teeth as I glared again.

I brought a leg up and though I didn't step on it when I stomped, the pokeball utterly and violently shattered to bit under my psychic power's pressure, much to the woman's agasp shriek. She covers her head and whimpers... As I glared her down, I only had one word for her. {RUN...}

When she saw that word in her head, she suddenly lifted it from her arms and looked at me, scared for her life as she started to shiver back up onto her feet. She took a step back as she furrowed her brows. Shaking her head, she both thought and said, {Wha...?]

I lost my temper and materialized a few Psyshock point, giving her the sickest glare as I screamed, "RUN AWAY!"

Even if she didn't understand what I said, she still gasped and took off running away from me as I shot point after point at the floor right behind her ankles, ridding it with dents, holes and the like. One even sliced along an ankle as she shrieked and stumbled, but she caught herself and continued to run, vanishing around a corner wall as my last Psyshock point flew through her hair and pierced through the metal wall, leaving a gnarly hole...

I huffed and puffed at how much anger and frustration I let out at once, sweating while the remaining pink points slowly dissolving into pink smoke. shaking my head and decidedly turned away from the hall she disappeared down, my eyes fell back down to the green-masked man... Glaring again through the hate I felt for these people, I stormed over until I was right beside him, then swiftly delivered a hard, roar-exciting kick to his head and off his mask flew from what was left of his face, clattering into a wall with a -clang!- ... I was still scowling into it the whole time; the face of one of the men that kidnapped us... There is nothing worth recounting about it... I don't think you'd want me to, anyways... It was not exactly pretty...

... I turned away from him and just stood there for a moment... and ran down the hall, passed the broken bodies of humans I myself hadn't left behind. It looked like some pokemon wanted to use their freedom to give their captors justice. I eventually came to the cells, door after door left busted open and in terrible shape and room after room empty, unless the crumpled body of a human or two were inside.

I slowed myself down to a stop once I spotted the one door out of all the rest that hadn't been opened... It had been my cell, I remembered.

I walked up to the door as I stared up at the bar one might use to pull it open and lock it. It was too far up to reach with my hands... losing my scowl quickly as I looked off to the side, my eyes softened with furrowed brows. I still didn't know what I might look like to Aria... Shaking my head, I narrowed my eyes and decided that it didn't matter. She needed to get out of here... I held out my hand to the door as my Confusion's grasp took hold of the metal hunk, creaking it idly. I swiped my arm to the side quickly and incidentally ripped the door from the slide hinges and doorway, throwing it skidding noisily down the hall with metal screeching against metal.

... And there she was. Aria was against the far wall, eyes and mouth gaping wide. She... looked no different. I guess it's about right she didn't. Meloetta and other legendaries had long lives, just like us of the ralts family... Though, I'm not sure if I still counted... She immediately stood up and stared at me as her mouth closed... "R-Ralina...?!" The tone in her voice was disbelief. She was definitely shocked.

I didn't blame her, looking away while I closed my eyes and idly shrugged. "... Yeah..." My voice... The first time I had noticed it since waking up. It was more matured, even if not by much. I couldn't help but stare down in the direction of my throat as my hand felt it's fingers to it. I looked back up at her to see that she'd closed the gap between the two of us... looking up at me... It felt wrong to me that she was now much shorter than me when I started off a single foot tall before all of this, but she was smiling after the longest time... I didn't comprehend it, shaking my head. "I don't understand how you can stand there, smiling at _this_..."

It took her a moment to respond, blinking into a confused, cocked brow. "...I've honestly seen worse on pokemon who were naturally strange looking. You can't compare to the UG that is Venusaur."

Sighing off to the side, I couldn't stop a smile from creeping up on me. "...Well... thanks... I think... But with all due respect, I can't really count myself a pokemon anymore..." ... Funny. If I had known what that pokeball said, I might have been even more convinced I wasn't one, back then. No use thinking about what I didn't know... Anyways, then Aria said...

"Oh, shut up~."

I recoiled a bit from her rebuttal, blinking my eyes a bit wide down at her just in time to find her hugging me around my waist. I really didn't know how to respond to this... I just gave in and shook my head, reluctantly resting a single hand to her back... We couldn't stay here, I reminded myself, furrowing my brows.

I gently pried her from me and stepped back while looking at her, seeing how she seemed confused. "What's up? Why are you acting... weird?"

I shook my head and sighed through my new nose. "It's really not the time for any of this..." I walked away from the door way and further down the hall as she followed, using levitation to keep up.

Aria spoke up while a frown took hold of her face. "Ralina, I want to help. Any way I can, please. Just let me."

... Why hadn't I been reading her mind? Simple. I didn't want to get weak knees then of all times. And how I was able to do it was actually simpler than I thought it would be. I just focused on my own thoughts. What I wanted to do naturally took up all the thinking space I had...

Whatever the case... I stopped and paused for a moment, just listening to that name in my head. Ralina... It felt incredibly wrong for me to be using that name, then... "Stop calling me Ralina..."

She was taken aback by the statement, frowning as she floated in front of me. "But... I don't understand. Why? There's nothing wrong with your name..."

I had a deep grimace on my face as I tilted my head down and closed my eyes. "... I just spent the last few minutes killing humans that either took us here or turned me into this... The old "Ralina" didn't believe in killing, until she figured out her mother was killed by these same humans."

The part about my mother being dead made her face turn paler, if that was even possible. She frowned and furrowed her brows, trying to reach for me, but I gently pushed her hand away, then walked a ways passed her, leaving her to close her eyes and shake her head. "I'm so sorry..."

I walked a small ways more, before stopping and considering what to call myself then... One human used the word "Fate" when describing the force responsible for himself being there that specific day... I was definitely no force, but it was better than what I had, now. "Call me Fate from now on. Until I feel comfortable with myself again, I'm not using Ralina, so just get used to that one."

She hesitated for a moment... but turned to me and quickly levitated to my side. "Please, let me come with you! I don't want to leave you alone like this..."

I shut my eyes and shook my head. "That would be nice, but no." Opening them once more, I looked at her with my eyes alone, not turning to face her directly. "I want you as far away from this place as possible. You and every other pokemon here... I'm about to go and find a way to erase it from the face of the planet. It is never getting used for what they did to me, ever again."

"No!" She narrowed her eyes into me and grabbed me by the shoulders. "I can't let you! I WON'T! Five years of thinking you died in that room. Five! I didn't know what to do with myself or what to tell your mother! And now I know why she never yelled at me and I can't let you go knowing you might die! Ralina, I-"

My patience wore thin. I used confusion to grab her, much to her gasping fright, then whipped my arm up and back as she was sent flying behind me! She eventually thud against the floor and roll a ways, which was painful for me to hear...

My brows furrowed and I bit my lip, but I eventually started walking away while she was picking herself off the floor. I know for a fact she could have persisted, but I think... maybe I got through to her in some small measure, even though I'm pretty sure by the feeling of her emotions that she was hurt in more ways than just physically...

... ... ... Do I regret that? ... I do and don't... It was the hardest thing I had to do, that day... even with what comes next being far more dangerous. I'd hurt one of the people that cared about me the most in my time there... At least she listened to me afterwards... Hah... To a certain extent, I mean...

I continued to comb the facility over, looking for a way to blow it sky-high. All the while, I encountered human resistance... I left the bodies of that resistance to the wayside, searching ceaselessly. It didn't matter how many got in my way. I could tear them apart like paper. And tear them apart, I did...

I eventually came to a hallway that looked brighter than the others with a blue, flickering glow coming from the corridor leading me left. Following the light, I traveled the hall to it's end. Finding the source was relatively easy. The Light came through via a window looking in on a room blocked off by a metal door with yellow and black lining top and bottom. I dealt with the door the same as before. I used Confusion to rip it from the railing, unconcerned with the scraping sounds it caused to echo the halls.

Stepping inside the room, my eyes grew wide as they observed what laid inside. These great, massive machines- four in all- acted as supercharged lightning rods for one another, constantly sparking electricity between themselves as they illuminated the room in a bath of blue light. It was so bright after a while that the image had imprinted in my vision, but I never though to cover my eyes with a hand. I was in shear awe of the powerful machinery. Narrowing my eyes, I squinted to see a fifth machine, smaller than the rest, in the center... though, it was smoking. It looked badly damaged. That's when I realized that it must have been the machine I overloaded that kept us pacified. It DID look different than the others. More like a box with wired antennas. I glared at it, then turned my attention back to the larger machines all around it. I nodded to myself. "If anything can blow this place apart, I'm gonna bet it's making these things explode."

{As easy as before, it seems,} came a thought with ill intent from behind me. I gasped as I spun around and froze at the sight of a gun- a very familiar one- pointed at my face... I carefully looked beyond it to see a very unwelcome person. The red masked man that was among those that brought us here in the first place.

I couldn't see his face, but somehow it felt like he was smiling. [We met again.]

Funny how every human thought that I could understand them. Who started that rumor? ... ... ... Professor Oak? Really? Another science-y type?

I used Teleport to surround myself in a pink aura and vanish as he fired into the floor, scarring it's surface with a mass of puncture holes. I reappeared from a flash of pink to one side of the room as the masked man spotted me before long, walking into the room with careful, yet confident steps. He aimed his gun at me again, cocking this special sliding mechanism on the bottom as the gun ejected a small, smoking cylinder. It dropped to the ground, steaming from a hole blown in it.

We stared each other down for the longest time. Something warned me that this man was nothing like his hapless friends. He knew how to fight, but he didn't start anything just yet.

I glared him down, the electrical sparks crackling beside us both. I thought to him in his mind. {You know, I find you humans funny how you actually think I can even understand a thing you're saying. Actually, no. That's not true, because that would be a compliment. I think you're all idiots.}

With a humph, he shook his head and thought back. {I suppose that this what that man was going on about. A pokemon that spoke into our minds. Then, you must know that I came here to protect what little remains.}

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. {Protect? This place? And just why? As you can see, it made a freak of me. And you are just gonna stand there and tell me you want to protect this place?!} ... I laughed, mocking the very idea, before scowling more furiously into him. {Oh, but right. You're one of the humans that brought us here, so I guess that it's your fault my mother died, too...}

He seemed to turn his head down slightly... before he faced me again and lowered his gun. {... I do regret letting that happen. Your mother was never meant to be a subject at all, according to what Croff and Aklin's orders were for me.}

I remained silent while I closed my eyes and read what he had to say.

{The orders that were handed down to my team and I were to specifically capture humanoid pokemon, but to prioritize a child evolution of the same make-up. This was never told to the other scientists until it was too late. And so, Tayner, the man whom took over control of the project from Croff, used your mother. On the basis that she was the most humanoid of all subjects present, he assumed this would give him a desired result. It's none of my business, but some scientists thought he was being short-sighted concerning the Meloetta..." Turning his head a bit, he suggested, "Or disingenuous..." ... Shrugging, he turned his head back to me. "It was never an order from the director, but that was the pretense...}

... I seethed and shook. I knew it felt wrong, but at that point, I was thankful that I killed him. My mother's direct murderer was dead... I opened my eyes and scowled into the masked man's mask. {... So, he's the one who did it... I knew he was lying... I'm glad I killed him, then. That man deserved worse, but I'm glad he's gone.}

{...} He said nothing, then shook his head. After a pause, he spoke. {We both know that only one of us can leave this room alive, potentially. You undoubtedly hate me. And I have reason to kill you myself, even if not as substantial.} He pointed his gun at me again. {I saw what you did to Carlon and other members of my Guardians. You and the other beasts. Dis-functional as we are, I consider each member family and I've killed some of your fellow pokemon to make that point, so I see no reason not to kill you."

That wiped away quite a lot of... whatever slight forgiveness I was starting to feel for him. My eyes grew in realization. Scowling at him, I grit my teeth. "You...! You had better not of hurt Aria! She didn't hurt anyone!"

He was very silent for a bit, considering what he would say. I could practically see him hiding thoughts from me... He then shrugged. "So, what if I did? I won't feel sorry for it. And I didn't even know your kind used names. Didn't think you were smart enough."

...The unclear answer made me irritated. He was playing with me. And I didn't appreciate that...

"You let them out. And you killed a few humans yourself. I killed quite a few pokemon moments ago to get revenge. But I won't be satisfied 'till your little body is riddled with holes. You aren't innocent and neither am I, so let's not pretend. I won't show forgiveness, as is the same for you. I know well that you may be stronger than I am now that you've been given a new body, so I may have no chance what-so-ever... I'm still going to try my damnedest to kill you, so you had better kill me if you can, brat, so speak some last words and let's get down to it!}

I could feel my blood boiling as he threaten my life, recalling that it was because of that man that we ended up here in the first place. My eyes were sharp like daggers with hate. {You're very right. I won't settle for things as they are between us if you live. You're also right about something else. I can kill you. Just remember this...} Arrow heads of dark pink shimmered into being as raised a hand and stepped forward. I was getting better at using Psyshock. {You helped make me a monster.}

The gun went off and I was ready for it. I moved my opposing hand up and used confusion to stop whatever was fired coming toward my circle, stilling a spread of tiny, black, marble projectiles. I heard the remaining spread clank and clang against the wall and floor behind me.

After he cocked the gun, he fired again, but again the same happened as the black marbles collected in another layer. I figured the attack out quickly as I realized the gun had a delay time of 1 second. Thrusting both arms forward with a grunt, I sent both my Psyshock arrows and the caught pellets flying at him.

With any other, that would have been the end, but he'd already begun to spin out of the way in a dodge as everything rushed passed him and instead littered the wall behind him with dents and holes. He had reloaded the gun during that time and shot for where I was, only for pellets to sail the open and empty air. I had teleported.

I materialized behind him as I summoned Psyshock arrows to all sides, again. As I was about to send them flying directly into him, I suddenly found his foot in my stomach as he kicked me away and sent me rolling!

... I was expecting to be shot at that point, but it never came. I groaned as I looked up to see that he was in the middle of sliding more of those cylinders into a port in his gun as he approached me in a storm. Suddenly alert, I rolled into a running sprint as he took aim for me just as I got myself behind one of the large machines generating power, but made sure I wasn't too near it that I got struck or shocked.

He didn't fire at me after that. I used the moment to catch my breath, quietly breathing to myself while I tried to think of a plan. I was definitely not the skill nor experience in this fight. I was the power. Directly, skill trumped power. I was starting to figure that out. We were both smart, but one of us was limited to depending on physical force and a weapon... I needed to break one. And I figured out a how. His gun could only fire 4 times before he needed to reload it.

I used my teleportation to switch my position to the opposite side of the room, over on the other side of a machine.

Reforming from the pink mist, I nearly got very unlucky when a bolt of stray electricity zapped the floor in front of me, making me go stiff and nearly let out a gasp. I narrowed my eyes at the sound of the masked man's voice as I calmed myself and focused on where the sound was coming from.

[I know you're not gone! Come out, girl! I'm going to ring your little throat for the face job you gave Carlon! I know it was that damn move that did it, so don't deny it, either!] It was all noise to me and he was keeping me out of his mind as far as what he was up to... or at least, he had been. What I HEARD from his mind next was probably a quieter thought. {...can't let this runt get away... Damn. She must have used Teleport. The kid loves that move, seems to me. ...Not anywhere on the left...} I could also tell where the feeling of alertness was coming from, much to my surprise. He was coming down the middle... but that seemed stupid to me. I remember thinking he'd definitely get fried.

I carefully moved around the... I guess it could just be called a generator for convenience... I moved with slow and quiet steps in the opposite direction from the man. I could hear him pretty well enough with how his boots didn't make it very quiet when he stepped at all...

Looking into the path down the middle, I was careful not to show myself as I spotted him getting shocked by the electricity... but just moving right through without minding it! Electricity didn't affect him at all. I figured it must have been his armor. It seemed like it was capable before, but right then it just seemed incredibly handy.

He stopped as he went stiff, then turned my way... only to see nothing. I had ducked back into cover and moved back the way I'd come, back around to the other side of the generator. I held up a hand and summoned Psyshock's arrow heads. Stopping shy of the open walk way, I thought for a moment, then gently pushed my arrowheads into the path and potentially his line of sight... I thrust my hand out as they shot forward toward him, making him gasp as I heard metal clanks.

... A moment passed as silence reigned. I knew he was still there... Suddenly, I felt his presence getting closer as he rushed down the middle, his boots hammering the metal floor. Gasping through my surprise, I quickly jumped back and readied Confusion just in time as he rounded the generator and took quick aim, firing the second he saw me as a spray littered my Confusion's barrier. Then he cocked the gun and fired another round as he drew closer and exitted the middle of the generators, me catching everything with the barrier as he kept firing and drawing in. Electricity stopped clinging to him as he got out of range and kept his gun focused on me.

I kept backing away as I waited for the last round... but it never came, which had me sweating. He already figured out I would try that and was waiting for me.

I grew unnerved as he drew dangerously close to me. Then, I began to summon Psyshock's arrow heads. Having to keep Confusion up in case of return fire made it harder to focus and make them, but I soon had a few arrows to work with.

I let the arrows fly as he drew in to close, only for him to dodge aside and toward my open flank, blocking me off from running anywhere as he spun around for an attempt at kicking me! I just barely dodged out of the way of it as I smacked into the corner wall of the room, accidentally dropping my confusion much to my horror as all of those pellets fell to the floor like tiny marbles.

[Hah! Open!] He immediately spun back around from the kick and took aim as I gasped and raised my hand up, using Confusion right as his finger near squeezed the trigger...

... ... ...

I was gasping for air from just how close to death I was just then. The barrel of that gun was in my face and the only thing that saved me was a quick and lucky snare with Confusion used on the masked man himself. He groaned as he kept attempting to squeeze the trigger, finger quivering and tapping weakly against the metal lever...

I took a moment to absorb the situation... then scowled through sheer malice and thrust my arm forward, sending him flying and screaming! He slammed into one of the far walls with a loud -CLANG!- as his weapon went flying from his hands and skidding away from him, right at the foot of the generator!

With an exasperated sigh, I released confusion, still catching my breath from my near death experience as he fell to the floor and clanged against the metal surface in a heap...

I began to walk toward him while I saw him writhe for a moment as he groaned... Then, he began to quickly scramble for his gun, reaching out for it before long.

I gasped and quickly lifted a hand, forming an arrow head from psyshock as he pulled his gun into his hands and attempted to take aim from his laid down position! I quickly let my arrow head fly and shoot into the gun's chamber, bursting it open as the man gasped! He looked at his damaged weapon, then at me... I could feel warmth drain from him through his emotions.

I began walking toward him again as he dropped the gun and attempted to pick himself up, groaning all the while like he was seriously injured, but I ended that effort by exerting Confusion over him again and thrusting my arm down. It slammed him flat to the floor head first with a loud -TANG!- as he shrieked from pain, his mask having become a broken and cracked up mess.

I glared down at him as he groaned again before using his remaining strength to flip himself clumsily onto his back. The mask broke apart like glass on one side, then fell off of his head entirely, bounding to the floor, rolling around on it's in tact side in a circle before it came to a halt, rocking back and forth.

His face was finally revealed. He was a man of at least 30 years old, face tough looking with a strong, diamond jawline. His hair was jet black, messy and short. His hardened, down-turned eyes were a dark yellow. On his forehead was a scar right across and over his cheekbone was a smaller one. He had a roughly trimmed, thin beard along his entire jaw...

He opened his mouth to speak... But he must have remembered that I can't understand him that way, because he closed it soon after. {Well? Are you going to have me beg to be spared? You'll be waiting for nothing, if that's the case. I already told you. One of us couldn't make it out of here alive. My men can survive without me, as well, so go ahead. End what you started if you have the guts.}

... I paused there for a moment, just glaring at him. {...Not before you answer one thing.}

He loosened his glare, closing his eyes. {...Fine.}

I did the same, taking a breath. {Why?}

His brow twitched with a slight grunt as her opened his eyes. {... Why?}

{... Why did you have to take my mother when Aria was the one you wanted most of all? And why hurt my sister? What was even the point after you had someone like Aria...}

... He didn't think anything for the longest time, staring off from me. {... ... ... Yeah. You're right. I could have just left with... I'm gonna guess Aria is the Meloetta... Irony.} Shrugging, he thought on. {One was probably enough, but I don't take chances. I take consideration. And even though the Meloetta was a humanoid, the doctor said if I found a ralts... I was to bring it back, no questions asked. I can only think he had a good reason for wanting one, so I made sure I caught you... Whatever means necessary... Got rewarded handsomely for it, too. Even hired us long-term with great pay because of it...} He glared into nothing in particular. {I knew how despicable I was for taking a little girl and her mother from their home, but like I said. My men come first. I don't care what's asked of me, if they get something good.} Smirked weakly, he coughed out a few laughs and stared me on the face. {Shoulda known it was a deal too good to be true... Big money usually means deep shit...}

... At the same time, I felt angry... and sympathetic... I didn't know what money was or what it meant to people at the time, but it sounded like he was a decent guy just trying to provide for his people... I still hated him, but I wasn't glaring down at him... I was just staring...

Losing his smile, he let his head fall back as he seemed to relax in an awkward way. {Go ahead, then. Kill me. Doesn't matter if you don't at this point, because... I can't feel my legs. Can't get out, so I'd rather you killed me instead of my men seeing me like this...}

That demand was less welcome than I thought it would be as I silently stared at him, tilting my head... {...Most normal people beg for their life when they think they'll die. Why aren't you?}

He chuckled a little at that, weary as he set his eyes on me with the same cold stare. {I don't think that really matters. Maybe I'm tired of living this kind of life all together. Maybe I couldn't stomach killing a kid after I already essentially murdered her mother. Maybe finding out pokemon name themselves too is a pretty big pill to swallow. Makes them seem too sentient. T's not like killing beasts...} He looked back over to me with a resolved glare. {Now, get it over with. I am the human that kidnapped you and got your mother killed. I even tried to kill you. That makes us pretty damn clear enemies... Finish what you started...}

... I raised a hand and summoned a single Psyshock arrow. He closed his eyes, even smiling as if he welcomed this...

... There was no way he was getting out of this alive, even if I didn't directly kill him. As soon as I blew this place up, there would be no way he'd escape. He was paralyzed from the waste down and I'm positive he was the last of his men still here at this point, if they weren't all dead... Still... I hesitated for a moment...

... Wordlessly, I thrust my arm straight at his chest as the arrow shot through him, right through his heart as he slumped and laid there flat... Blood ran through the new hole in his armor, coating the floor before long... He was dead...

... Unlike with the other "guardian, I didn't feel any better for this... I felt... confused... On one hand, the man responsible for all of this was dead. On the other, he wasn't the same man I pictured him to be... I didn't think about it for too much longer, because I remembered that I came here to do something...

I turned back to the machines in the room, still somewhat in awe of the power on display. The electrical currents constantly humming out loudly between the four machines. Each machine probably held power on par with Raikou, the very lightning itself. I groaned as I recalled the one time I got shocked full of the very same lightning. A million needles awaited me when I would destroy these... or an even worse pain, since they would be exploding instead of shocking...

I raised a hand, focusing as I summon as many Psyshock arrows as I had remaining energy to use. I didn't know any weak points, so I floated the countless number of arrowheads all around each generator, as if I were about to perform acupuncture.

My eyes shut while I took a moment to myself, remembering mother and Kimmy... I remembered the game of hide and seek as if it happened yesterday... I really wished that all had some elaborate dream, but it never went away...

Opening my eyes into a glare, I clenched my hand into a fist. Every Arrow head converged and shot into the machines, ripping into them or plain sailing through and into nearby walls! Riddled with holes as the currents between the machines became unstable, they all caught on fire first.

At that point, I closed my eyes and waited. I wasn't really thinking of preservation. I remember what was on my mind. {Monsters like me should never exist...}

 _No!_

I gasped as I heard my mother's voice, faintly. "Mom...?!"

The machines finally started to whine out of control as I watched with a renewed terror. I guarded myself by curling inward and crossing my arms in from of my face.

It wasn't me that summoned it, but an encircling field of some kind, pink in color and formed of hexagonal grids suddenly surrounded me as I frantically looked around and began to panic, dropping my guard.

My eyes then caught sight of the generators all going off with a massive, blinding explosion as I screamed and covered my face.

I didn't hardly get hit by it, other than the shier force sending me rocketing back within the barrier with my screams as the walls flew apart all around me! I didn't know how far I traveled or how fast, but everything around me was a fiery blur and an endless white. Closing my eyes didn't help at all. My ears were endlessly assaulted by the mad roars of the explosion all around me. My stomach turned inside out and my sense of direction had long since been lost.

It felt like the world was ending around me while I was being spared, all so I could suffer it burning in front of me.

Soon, there was no longer just white, green rushing by below and to my sides as I lost momentum and fell into the grass. I bounced hard on the barrier wall with a loud grunt of pain as it finally shattered with the impact, leaving me at the landing's mercy.

I skid the grass on my back, forming a brush burn for certain before I hit a small bump in my path and got sent up, flipping wildly without control. I tried to use an arm to correct myself, but I ended up spinning myself sideways as my palm got jammed uncomfortably hard into the ground. My world was now spinning like a baltoy and I couldn't do anything anything about it!

I eventually bounced again on the same arm as I heard and felt a crunch, my eyes wide with the pain. I hit something far too solid and hard. At my elbow, the screaming pain of dislocated bones was incredibly prevalent... and I was still tumbling after that. I rolled over my dislocated elbow so many times that I'm surprised I didn't lose the arm or twist it all the way around. Every tumble, a sharp, crunching pain until I finally slammed back first into a tree as I urked. Falling to the foot of the great, green giant, I laid there...

I can only guess that every part of me was bruised in some way, because it felt like I'd been played around with like a rag-doll. I only gave weak writhes while my mind was filled with nothing but pain from my arm or otherwise. My consciousness was a sliver at best after feeling everything come together like that...

... It took a full five minutes of squirming there on the ground for me to even orient myself enough for any other movement... I tried with my one good arm to slowly rise myself into an unsteady sit, unsuccessfully as I fell right back over onto my sprained arm with a weak scream as pain shot through me. I quickly tossed myself off of it in one instinct driven motion and laid there on my back while I held my breath, holding my arm in the other...

After the pained died down again, I breathed and huffed with every breath as I tried to get a handle of it...

Once again, I tried to sit up. I had more success, now that I could push myself up onto my rear directly. My everything begged for me to stop, but my stubborn mind wouldn't let me...

My fatigue was apparent... With most of my strength, I forced a foot beneath myself and balanced my body with my good arm, careful not to mess up as I began to stand. It was slow, but I finally forced myself onto one knee as I was about to fall again, a quick jerking move from my other leg helped it stand and catch me before I did. Taking a moment, I threw myself up into a stand and slowly rose into a semi-straight posture.

... There was barely enough left in me to hold myself up. Even now, today, there has never been a single time after that in which my body felt more ready to fail me... It was just utter misery...

I held my bad arm gingerly with my other, hissing as the pain flared up, but settled down soon enough. Examining it, I was thankful enough to see it wasn't a twisted mess. It was just a sprain... though, the arm was bleeding from brush burns and small cuts...

Looking around at my surroundings, it became obvious that the explosion threw me into a forest... only it wasn't mine. These trees were different from the ones I knew. Taller. straighter. I turned myself and looked out into the forest, but everything looked the same... I heard something... It was running water and it sounded like it was to my left.

Turning in that direction, I slowly began to walk on with clumsy steps. My arm hurt with every step I took...

As a rustle came from a small thicket to my side, I gasped aloud and alert. Someone was following me. I shook back my exhaustion as I cursed under my breath, doing my best to drag myself away from the scene in a very unsteady, sped up hobble. I remember thinking that I must have been the most unlucky kid on the planet with how things seemed to fall apart around me.

I just had to reach the water... and then... I hadn't thought of anything to follow up with, other than maybe draw them out into the open and attack with whatever I had left.

Nearer and nearer the sound of water grew. I had to be on top of the source of that sound because the trees were starting to thin out as the sunlight shun through.

I stepped out of the trees as I huffed and puffed, eyes adjusting to the light as I spotted what appeared to be the largest lake I'd ever seen...

A massive waterfall that ascended at least two-hundred feet high roared in the distance, west from me. There were two branching rivers that ran off from the lake. One was directly across the river from me and the other was on the eastern end from where I was standing. I don't think I'd ever seen a clean body of water near this massive inland before. Compared to it, I maybe registered as a baby joltik to a wailord... But there was no time to really check that fact in my current situation

I didn't wait to catch my breath, turning around as quickly as my near-crippled body could. My eyes were trained on the rustling bushes that had been along my path. With each second, the unknown that had been following me got to a closer bush, closing in on me. As it emerged from the bushes, I didn't wait to attempt to summon psyshock, but instead of forming anything, a pain shot through my body as I shrieked and shut my eyes tight as I collapsed there on the ground, my exhaustion and pain finally becoming too much! I fell flat to the ground, my bad arm thankfully falling to my side and not beneath me...

I grew tired from it all while laying there, shivering, not even attempting to rise again. I had resigned myself to whatever would happen. My sight grew poor and my hearing blurred while my consciousness faded. I could hear someone talking... Their colors were just barely focused enough to make out. It was pink and light yellow. Then, this second figure rushed out from the bushes and began to yell at the first. This other was white and black...

...And then I sighed and lost consciousness...


	13. Chapter 9: Muddied Fate

... I remember waking up by water, groaning while I refocused my sight.

I blinked my eyes a few times and carefully rose to my knees... It was actually pretty easy. I looked at my arm and even lifted it... No sprain... That wasn't right. I checked the rest of my body out and, even if I was still disgusted with the way I looked, it was all fine. Everything looked like it had never been damaged...

I looked back to the water and blinked, then walked closer, but something was very wrong... I had no reflection, again... I finally understood what was going on. This was a dream and I was back in "my forest home".

Turning and looking around, I saw that I was indeed correct. There were the pecha trees. To my right was the stone mom sat on in passed dreams next to the pond. And ... in front of me, there SHE was, towering above me and smiling brighter than the sun... only this time, I personally felt wrong about it.

"Hello, dear~. And sorry for the rough ride..." Her brows furrowed as her smile shrunk. She crouched down and rubbed my head as I closed my eyes and tried to relax... but that never happened. "It was all I could do to keep you from the blast."

... Ordinarily, I would have admired my mother for doing something like that... I instead shook my head with a smirk. "Hah hah hah hah hah!" It was all starting to "make sense" to me and I couldn't help but laugh, not because it was funny... but because it was all too convenient...

My mother seemed worried as she frowned and stopped rubbing my head, just holding her hand to it as if she forgot about it, there. "...Ralina...? What are you...?" She smiled nervously. "I-is there by chance something I've missed?"

"How could you have? You're me..."

She lost her smile immediately, her face contorting with great worry. "...R-Ralina, what are you saying?"

I shook my head and swat her hand from my face, much to her gasping shock. I just stared into her, emptily. "Why is my own mind asking me what I'm saying? I know you are just me wishing my mother was here..." I glared into what I claimed was a hallucination. "The fact is that my REAL mother is dead. You can't be her."

"Mom" sat there with a shocked and frowning face, eyes wide as the hurt showed through as her brows furrowed. "... I... No, please. Wait a moment, Ralina. I-"

"Shut up!" My glare erupted into a contorted scowl. "I don't wanna hear one more word! I don't want to keep having this same Arceus abandoned dream over and over and over, but my mind is probably so broken that it's the only one I know!" With this grotesque smile on my face, I chuckled. I wanted to cry. I was taking stabs at my mother's hallucination and it STILL felt wrong. "I've just been comforting myself...! I've been making you up so I don't feel how dang alone I am! I even made up some logic for why you could come into my dreams like this...!" I clutched my face and breathed. I don't even know why I was breathing when I didn't need to. I was so worked up that I hadn't even realized there was a great hole in my logic...

"Mother" was slowly brought to empty sobs... before tears started rolling down her cheeks... I couldn't shed tears here... Why could she...? I just thought that it was just another punishment, like metaphors standing for something... "R-Ralina, please...! No... I-I'm not a part of your mind... I c-ould never tell you the truth! What would have happened?! How could I ever tell you that-"

My temper finally got the better of me as I bared my teeth. I threw my hands from my face and screamed at the top of my lungs! "SHUT! UP! I DON'T WANT THESE LIES, ANYMORE!"

I suddenly gasped awake from my sleep as I sat up and shouted, "I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE! ..." My eyes flew open as I stared ahead of me and saw... what appeared to be the inside of a lit cave. And once again, I felt extremely sore... My injuries were back, even the one I seemed to be forgetting... I collapsed back down when I realized that, crunching something beneath me. I didn't hear that sound that time. My mind was too busy buzzing.

... ... ... So, you realized that, huh? Yeah... I'd never realize my contradiction in logic until I was made to think about it. I was a child, no matter how "mature" I was supposed to be for my age...

Anyway, getting back to that lit cave, I looked around for the source of the light and found a campfire going strong a few paces away from me. Looking down beneath me while turning over to one side and hearing crinkling snaps, I realized that I was laying down on a bed made of hay... or something like hay. I wasn't certain. "What in the world...?" {Where am I,} was my immediate thought, blinking over the area.

I then heard footsteps, gasping and rolling over to the wrong side as I rolled right atop my sprained arm and grunted loudly, falling to my back again as my other hand flew to that same screaming arm, gingerly gripping where it hurt as I hissed. "Augh! My arm!" I looked down at it and blinked in angry suspicion at what looked like small planks holding it straight. It was secured by tight strings of some sort... String shot? I'm pretty sure that's what it was. I had unconsciously begun to try ripping the binding string off, but it was harder than one might figure.

The footsteps sped up as a creature emerged from the tunnel of the cave! "No no no! Stop that! It hasn't re-set, yet," came an unfamiliar pokemon's soft voice as a pair of three fingered, small, pudgy hands eventually came over my grasping hand as they pried it away. I gasped in air as my eyes snapped to the pokemon, seeing an Audino looking at me with a scolding glare. A pink and yellow pokemon. Same one I couldn't really make out finding me first, before that white, black and green blur came from behind it...

You know what an Audino looks like, right...? ... You don't know what an Audino is, period? Oh boy... Uh... Well, they're these somewhat rotund pokemon that have sitrus berry shaped forms to them, if you include their round head with chubby cheeks. They have pudgy arms that lead into small, three fingered hands and these cute, stubby legs with two toed feet. They have these floppy, almost wing-shaped ears that have curled up, long lobes coming down from the inside of their ears that help hearing even better than their already huge ears probably could, naturally.

Their eyes are essentially like ovular Sapphires that have no real schlera, but they do have a hard to see, oval pupil in the middle. I don't think I've ever seen eyes so shiny. Their mouths are small and usually form V's when they either try to smile or frown. They also have a tail which is essentially just a big fluff ball of poof shaped like... ... ... Hmm... Hey. Spray that cracker with whip cream... Yeah. There. See that? it's shaped like an oversized dot of whipped cream. It even has the same white color.

They have coats that are both cream colored and pink. The cream color is whatever's left when you try to imagine it wearing a form fitting, flare jacket that's waaay too frilly on the bottom, frilly hood that covers down as far as their eyes, included. Their ears have pink as far as half way down their length, the cream otherwise, including their lobes. That should comprise their usual fur pattern.

So... I guess now, the best way to describe the audino I had staring into me at the time is to tell you what made her different. Her eyes were Emerald green in color. BRIGHT emerald green. The lobes of her ears seemed to be twice as long as usual. She seemed to wear this red ribbon with blue trim that was as long as her arms, even kinda wide for a ribbon. Something was written all over it, but it was King's Tongue lettering. At the time, I didn't understand any of it and neither did she. I now know it read, "Falling over means you have to get up, again." Ironic, considering...

She spoke. "Listen here, you. I spent a good while splinting that arm. Don't go dislocating it with rash movements and DON'T pull off that splint! Aren't you in enough pain?"

I was a bit stunned into silence for a moment, eyes wide and lips pursed... I looked away while I frowned and shook my head. "Why help me? You don't even know if I'm worth helping."

"I don't need a reason," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone with eyes closed and brows raised as her hands leave me to fidget with her ribbon. I looked at her with a cocked brow as she went on. "But if you can count me seeing you slam straight into a tree and scare me half way to death, I guess that you can have that one."

She smoothed her ribbon down before she turned to the tunnel she came from. "Not to mention..."

As she paused, I blinked at her gaze in confusion before turning to see the tunnel myself, just in time to see a familiar white and black pokemon float in, then set down on her feet a small distance from me... It was Aria, looking at me with a worried frown. "A-are you okay, Ralina...?"

When I saw and heard her, I felt my heart skip as my eyes were once again wide... I then settled quickly as I stared listlessly into her eyes, then turned my head away. "...I told you not to call me that name, anymore..."

Aria sighed and shook her head. She obviously didn't like it, because of what it stood for. "... Fine. Fate. But still... I was worried about you... You did a cra-"

{Don't,} I thought to her as she flinched in mid-word. She closed her mouth and looked at the Audino, who looked curious.

She stood up from me, looking back and forth between the two of us, inquisitively... "You do both know I can hear you're both nervous, right," she cheekily informed us as she smiled and rolled her eyes. She pointing to her ears as they flicked and bounced.

I hadn't and neither had Aria, both of us seeming to freeze.

See, Audinos have such incredible hearing that they can tell what someone's feeling through listening in on their heart. They don't even need to be near them. It's just like my own ability to read feelings, but I do it with thought. Needless to say, that didn't quite make her a mind reader, because she got no context from that alone.

She huffed a bit and shook her head as she crossed her arms. "You two are free to keep secrets all you like... But if you keep them, I'm not using Heal Pulse and you heal slowly. And that would speed recovery along nicely for... Fate, was it? Might not take care of that sprained arm of yours, but you'd be in a lot less pain and have none of those cuts and bruises."

The both of me and Aria stared at each other... I didn't need to read her mind to see her eyes pleading with me to let her talk... With a sigh, I shrugged and looked away. "Fine. Just don't blame me if she thinks I'm a monster..."

The meloetta sighed and smiled a little. "Honestly, Ra- Fate. You don't exactly scream monster quite like a Nidoking or Aggron do."

The audino was looking at me with a cocked brow. "What's so scary about... whatever you are?"

Aria looked at her with a frown. "... She's actually a ralts."

That made our "nurse" cover her mouth, looking at me with wide eyes. She dropped her hand and spoke. "Oh! Oh my, now I see it! The horns should have given it right away..."

And then, Aria and I started telling her everything about the lab and the experimentation. I omitted the parts that had me asleep for 5 years and seeing my mom in my dreams. It went about as expected when I told her about the "I killed a lot of humans" part...

After a bunch of exposition and argument over morality...

The audino was holding her head and thinking. She'd taken a seat on the ground next to the fire, trying to calm down and think rationally. {Okay... So, to sum it up nicely, I have a killer angry child in my cave, but her reasons are sound. I don't believe she will kill me the second her arm is healed.} She sighed and took her hand off of her head, looking at the both of us. "Okay. I am clear on your story and intentions. I am clear on the fact that you had every right to be outraged, even if I don't personally agree with what you did."

I had sat up with help from Aria and shrugged my shoulders, staring at the fire. "I know this is where I should say you're right, because you are, but I don't care. 117 pokemon killed and then they killed my mother? Ask me if I regret my choice."

Aria, who had come to sit at the foot of my hay bed, nodded, even though she still wore a frown. "I still think it should have been me."

"Yeah. Why do you think I knocked you out?"

She turned to me and glared for the first time on her own. "I wanted to keep you safe from them! You're younger than me! I was the closest thing they had to human right from the start, so it should have b-!"

I tightened my face into a glare right back as I cut her off. "Yeah, and I didn't want to lose the only other person that mattered to me! You decided everything without a second thought! I know because I READ THEM!"

Aria quivered at how loud I got, still just barely holding her glare at me. Apparently, I WAS scary in some way.

My head dipped low as my hair fell over my small shoulders and obscured my face. "... You didn't tell me anything. I had to get it all from your head... So, when I learned that you were going to leave me there all alone... I almost lost it... I'm afr-... hate.. being alone... And with my mom gone, that's exactly what I would have been..."

The sudden realization dawned on the meloetta as her eyes seemed to grow wide, brows curled... "I..."

I shook my head, holding up my good hand. She didn't try to talk after that... "I was the youngest they had. The leader of whoever those Guardian guys were told me as much, like I said. Going by the logic the old human gave us, I had the best chance out of my mom, you and myself. So yes... I don't actually totally hate my new body, because I'd rather have this body and have someone than risk losing everyone..."

Aria looked down at her lap while she held herself, frowning and saying nothing for a while...

The audino just sat where she was an observed. She wasn't as worked up about it as us. I didn't realize it at the time, but she was letting us be so that we'd know how we were feeling. That might not make sense, since I should have been able to tell what Aria was feeling, but I wasn't really reading anyone, right then. I was just keeping to myself.

"I'm sorry..." Aria finally spoke and it was soft. Not her usual tone. "And... It's okay if you hate me..."

... I moved my hair from one eye, tossing it from my face and over my shoulder as I sat straight. "If I hated you, why would I have done that? I said that I care about you, didn't I? We ARE still friends, right...?"

With a grin as she pulled her head back up and looked me in the eyes, she nodded. "...We better still be~."

And that's about when I opened myself back up to outside thoughts, listening to Aria's. Perfect timing, too. {I hope you know how much I mean that...} I could feel the warmth behind the thought. It was comfortable and inviting.

I smiled for the first time in what felt like forever. "I do..." My statement only further lifted her mood as her grin grew. She even blushed a little.

{Well, I believe that will do~.}

The stray thought sounded like the Audino as her calm warmth mixed in with Aria, much to my confusion as I looked over to her just in time to catch her having risen to her feet. She had her eyes closed and a smile on her face while her hands hovered close to one another. A small shimmering of green light began to appear within her grasp. Every sparkle grew together before combining to form a ball of shimmering light.

She then gently extended her arms outward as the ball flattened out and became a wave that swept outward, much to our surprise!

I instinctively guarded my face and shut my eyes as the wave washed over me and Aria both, making my body tingle as pain quickly ebbed away... When I realized this, I opened my eyes and looked around at myself. Not a single bruise was left and my cuts had all been closing up as I watched in awe. It only took moments for every single last one to vanish from completely healed skin. I looked over to our apparent friend and blinked. "Thank you."

With a pleasant smile, she nodded and spoke. "My name is Neloe, by the by. Despite the things you may have done, it IS nice to meet you both."

My eyes focused back to my arm, still in that strange splint... I tried to move it and instantly hissed at a dulled pain, my other hand holding whatever it could of my stinging arm... I took a sigh and stared into it as I spoke. "Guess that WAS a lot to expect."

Neloe came over to me with a sigh, looking sternly into my eyes as I turned and looked into them. Her arm folded as she said, "I told you not to. My Heal Pulse can heal and deal with your regular every day cuts, bruises, scrapes and so on, but expect it to heal a major injury and you'll be disappointed. Nothing but time and patience can heal your sprain."

I shrugged and thought for a moment. If my arm wasn't going to be ready for anything for a while, that meant extra caution. Though, I would be lying if I said that was the only thing going through my mind. I still had things I needed to do. PEOPLE I needed to find... and possibly end...

There was ONE thing I needed, otherwise. I looked back up at Neloe and Aria. "Can I at least finally see my face? I have no idea what I look like, just what I feel like."

Aria was the one to smile, even if only a little. She turned to face Neloe as the audino met her gaze, blinking from confusion. Aria asked, "Can I bring Fate to the lake? I think it'll help her to see she's not a monster once and for all."

Neloe was about to speak as she opened her mouth, but I immediately said, "Doubt that." The audino's eyes fell upon me as she cocked her brow.

If I have to explain what my face must have looked like right then, I guess dull and listless would be best.

My meloetta friend looked at me with a disapproving glare. She was getting fed up with how I kept going on. She had a burning feeling about her. Anger. She thought, {Fate, I know I can't understand your full pain, but this isn't a good way to handle anything. Hell, you're not handling it at all! You're just burying yourself with what YOU think and refusing to listen to anything but bare essentials! Give yourself a damn chance, because there is a reason I'm still here and there is a reason these people helped you, despite everything!}

A gasp escaped out my mouth while my eyes widely stared into Aria, who looked a little taken aback as her glare melted quickly. She instead blushed a bit, embarrassed. "Oh shoot, you can read my mind." She hadn't meant to chew me out, funnily enough.

I know my stomach still turned then and it still does now to think of how biting my friend's thoughts could be. I bent my head low and took a moment to myself... Then, I let out a sigh and looked up at her as she went to apologize, but again, I cut her off. "Stop. I get it." My lips curved into a slight grin. "I... am.. being a brat, aren't I? I'm sorry... Just ... Well, give me time. I have to get used to..." I gestured to myself, losing my grin. "Well, this.. at some point, because it's not going away. It's just gonna take me a while to accept that." Even as I uttered the words, it felt forced, but I knew what I was saying was very real. I had to accept this or I was not going to be able to live. I still looked up to her and found her and found her giggling a little, making me blink. "What?"

She chuckled into a goofy smile. "Nothing, but that was kinda comical for me. I hadn't even meant to tell you any of that stuff, but now I'm glad you heard it." She huffed out her last laugh and then stood up, quickly levitating up as her smile relaxed into a grin. She offered me a hand and said, "Right hand, please~. I'll help you up. And don't think just because you're taller now doesn't mean I can't!"

I just stared at her hand for a minute, a little lost on how she could still laugh after everything. I think I started to admire that about her. With a small grin, I took her hand within my own, gripping firm as she put effort into lifting me from the bed with little more than a "hup!"

I rose from my spot, erecting my legs and ending up on my feet before even a moment passed, much to my surprise. I looked at her, honestly astounded that she was just grinning like it barely took anything. "How did you just do that? I have to weigh at le-"

{Psychic powers rock~!} A feeling of bright and warm. Pride.

And suddenly, my face turned blank with my eyes staring into her...

She blinked her grin away and cocked her brow, before realizing she thought "aloud" and let out a small erk, sweat dribbling the side of her face. She tried to whistle it off... Yeah, that's what I call bad acting.

Smirking to myself, I chuckled. "Oh, I get it. You used a move."

She pouted with an irritated leer, arms crossed. "Oh, shut up. It works, right?"

My eyes rolled until an unfamiliar voice... of... honestly questionable gender spoke up.

"Oh look, the cute one's up. Well, I mean, the OTHER cute one."

I cocked my brow as my eyes trailed over to the tunnel. I spotted a normal enough looking Vaporeon standing there with a sweet enough smile on it's face. "Hi there!"

Honestly, by that point, I was well convinced that things were happening just to keep me from seeing my face... But I cocked a brow, either way. "Uhh... Cute?"

"Oh," came Neloe as she padded over to them with a grin. She was about twice as tall as the new pokemon, but the vaporeon was unquestionably longer in body. I have to bet that if they stood on two feet, the tallest one would change pretty easily. There was a bodily gender confusion about them. They had mixed features that seemingly blended well together, but also made it impossible to tell if they were a boy or a girl. A well-kept figure was theirs, doubtlessly from living as all wild pokemon do for years. Their brown eyes were large, yet charti berry shaped.

... Why don't I just say... Almond shaped? What the heck is an Almond? ... Huh. Well, I guess those could work, too. You'll have to show me one so that I can be sure about that, though.

Anyway, getting back to their face... They had a short muzzle, as most of Eevee's evolutions do. A small berry nose of navy-blue dotted it's upper half. The ear fins they had were every bit as large as could be expected.

The fin atop their head was smaller and the frills around their neck seemed to drape over their back and shoulders, acting... kinda like a poncho? I suppose that's a good way to see it. The spines down their back were almost normal, but around the base of the tail, they were longer.

Neloe pat this new arrival on the back with a smile directed my way and spoke. "This is Alex! They came around after your friend showed up and helped me move you into our cave. As an additive, they would also happen to be a close friend of mine."

"And stopped Aria here from throwing her into a tree." Alex's words made Neloe stiffen up as the grin on her face grew nervous... She looked down at the vaporeon's face with a passive aggressive glare. They looked back up at her with a sheepish smile. "W-what...? Wasss... I not supposed to tell her anything about that?"

...I turned and looked Aria in the face, only to have her nervously fidgeting with her thumbs. She only looked at me after a moment passed. I just stared into her blankly. "...What?"

With the clearing of her throat, she spoke with a shrug and a guilty smile. "I... thought she was gonna try to.. um... attack you? Sooo, I almost Psychic'd her into a tree?"

Raising my brows, my face had to have a grin on it. I was gonna instigate the nerve, but she slipped behind me with alarming speed and began to push me forward, almost causing me to trip! "Hey!"

Pushing me again, she guided us both into the tunnel before to long, saying, "That's enough talking- let's go see that face of your's! You need to see how cute you look, like the Vaporeon said!"

Even as I protested with wants to stop or for her to cut it out, I could still hear the vaporeon say, "Uh, did I mess up?"

Let's disregard the fact that the two of them probably had rocks to throw for a bit. It didn't really matter at this point.

We walked for a while in silence, me just following Aria while she guided me through the forest we found ourselves in.

I looked around at the surrounding trees, cracks in the leafy branches making way for sunlight and blue sky. Every bit blinding with how shaded the area was overhead, I ended up having to hold a hand over my eyes to continue looking up like that and block the sun.

When I did that, I noticed bird pokemon in the trees. The weird thing about them was that they weren't just one region's signature bird. Tailow, pidgey, I know I saw a pidove making a nest with it's mate... Looking down to the sunlight speckled area that stretched on through the trees, I could see Bidoof' wandering the bushes, A lone Trapias eating leaves off of high trees and many of a quadruped dog pokemon I still don't really know much about. Some were big, small and anything in between, but they all had brown furred faces with this cream facial fluff. The small ones had no real direction to the fluff. The mediums looked like they had eyebrows and mustaches. The biggest of them and the only one like itself had an even more extreme case like the medium's but it was so long that the mustache stretched around near all it's body...

... ... ... Lillipup, Herdier and Stoutland? THOSE are their names? Hah! Well, those just sound silly.

This place had a weird mixture of pokemon in it, whatever the case. So far, no place I'd ever been to either living or passing through had ever had these pokemon living side by side with one another. I doubt I'd forget it if that case were otherwise.

Looking on ahead, the heated light of a way through the trees strikes me as familiar. I walked off ahead of my meloetta friend as she hums in confusion.

As the light grew closer and closer, I squinted through the trees, making out blue surrounded by green. As I exited the the thicket, my eyes quickly adjusted to the light, allowing me to take in the true scene...

I was back at the lake- the same one I had passed out at when Neloe and Aria first found me.

That had been the first time I had truly been able to take it all in. Aria came along side me while I gawked at the lake. She smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder, drawing my attention. "This is where we found you. If I had to guess, this place is maybe a mile or so away from what used to be the lab the humans brought us to."

I blinked, remembering the explosion that sent me flying a ways. It surprised me to know that it sent me so far. Looking over the lake again, it surprised me even more to think that this beautiful place was just on the other side of a forest from our prison.

Before I thought too much about that, the meloetta pat me on the back as giggled as I looked back to her with a gasp. "Hey. Don't get lost in thought over that. We're free now, thanks to you." With a relaxed grin, she turned to look at the edge of the land right nearest the lake and spoke again. "The water's perfect here. You can get a clear reflection of yourself if you look." Turning back to me as I looked at the edge of the lake, she went on to finish with. "Go right ahead. I don't think you'll feel as bad about yourself when you do."

I did a double take on her... but decided not to say a thing. Instead, I walked away, looking out over the lake. Grass crinkled underfoot with every step my feet took and even rustled as my "dress" dragged the surface a bit.

As I stopped near the edge, I looked down and into my own reflection. I think this had been the first time I'd seen my face so clearly, minus the ripples in the water. These liquids were the cleanest I'd seen in my life. Everything was so quiet. Even the breeze seemed to fade into obscurity for me when I saw my face.

It was rounded, as I thought when I first woke up in that tube. My jawline seemed more apparent, a slight bend visible in the nearly perfect roundness where my chin was. Hah. I remember thinking, _I have a chin?_ ... Anyway, my features were more defined. My mouth was definitely bigger, no longer just a small thing that looked a bit small for my face. It fit. My lips pursed more and more with every feature I made out. I saw my deep red eyes, still very round, but slightly narrower. They grew wide when I took in my appearance. I had this small, noticeable nose in the middle of my face. Same thing I'd felt before when I first woke up.

I never had actual eyebrows before, but there they were; green in color and thin. My green lashes even showed up more, even if only slightly more, making a small tail at the ends of my eyes. My hair was so long that it draped the sides of this face, fitting over my shoulders much like a curtain of deep emerald green. In the middle of the top of my head were my now somewhat bigger horns, red, vaguely transparent and still every bit centered, thank Arceus. My head was still pretty large and neck not that much thicker, but it was obvious that my body had the most growth, especially in height.

Speaking of my body, for what I could see, it was indeed slim and still underdeveloped... for a HUMAN child. Overdeveloped for a Ralts. That's right... It had become more human-like than I realized. By that, I mean my bone structure was much more defined, not auspicious like any normal Ralts's was. It was near totally human, only softer. There was also another big thing that kept it from being human, that being that my "dress" was still loose from my hips down, making it look like I was wearing baggy pants, maybe. We already know what my arms looked like. They were no longer the longest limbs of my body, however. That was obviously my legs, even if my "dress" was still loose, there.

I gave my face an honest pass over with a hand, making sure this was really me I was looking at. When I saw the same thing in the reflection of the water right as I did it, I knew for sure. That was me. This was my face, my body...

"Not bad, huh?"

I turned my attention back to Aria with a blink... then looked back into the water at my hair, grasping my bangs with the one free, good hand. Measuring them up to my arm, I couldn't actually stretch it out enough to equal the length. "... My bangs seriously need to be cut," I answered flatly. I didn't want to admit anything. I didn't look like what my mind made me feel like.

The meloetta rolled her eyes and smirked. "If you say so, but you know you look n-"

"Aria..."

She flinched a little as she blinked, then just stared at me, awaiting what I'd say.

My face felt dirty. As I wore that dulled and tired stare, I shook my head ever so slightly. "...Just give me time. Sorry, but we both know this isn't right, even if I don't look like a terror."

She nodded, even if she frowned. "Sorry. I guess I just want to make you feel better... You're just... Well, seeing anyone hurt like this would make me want that." She took a sigh and shook her head at the grass, looking down at it as she continued. "But... the fact is that you went through the worst of it all... I need to get that through my thick head, right...?"

I dropped my bangs and looked back to the lake. I could have been THAT person and brought up mother, but I decided not to say that. I myself wasn't comfortable talking about her right then, because my mind couldn't stop remembering those vivid dreams of her.

Shaking my head, I looked back to Aria, turning from the lake. "I think I've seen enough. Can we head ba-a-..." I blinked my eyes wide as I spotted something out the corner of my eye, then quickly snapped my head to the side to see Neloe and Alex, just as they ducked below the bush they were hiding behind while it rustled. That drew Aria's attention next.

I just stared at the bush with a cocked brow. "...Why? Seriously, just come out. That isn't necessary. I don't have Bite or anything." At that, Aria cracked up with a chuckle.

After a moment, the both of them walked out side by side, smiles the very picture of nervousness. Alex spoke for the both of them. "We... didn't want to interrupt you."

With both brows raised, I shook my head. "There's not really anything to interrupt." Relaxing my face, I shrugged as I spoke again. "But I AM glad you're here, because I've got an honest question for you. Please don't take it the wrong way."

Alex blinked, then smirked with a raised brow. "Is it about my gender?"

"No i-..." I stopped and just stared with surprise. Turning completely toward them, I nodded my head. "Actually, yes. That IS what I was gonna ask. Are you a boy or a girl?"

Neloe seemed to grin especially wide. "Oh, but here we go."

Alex rolled their eyes at her, shaking their head. "Oh hush, you." Then, they refocused on me with a grin while I just stood there, kinda lost. "Well, to give you the simple version, right NOW I am male."

That answer made everything even more confusing. I stared at him with a cocked brow before speaking. "Right NOW? I don't see how that makes it simple. Are you saying you change it?"

"Yup," he responded with a big smile.

"...How?" Aria was giggled to herself at all of what was going on. I didn't really pay her much mind.

Relaxing his face into a grin, he explained while his tail swished idly. "Well, since you WANT the whole answer, I'm technically a loose form of shape-shifter, but I can only really transform between male and female. As an Eevee, I was born male, but when I became a Vaporeon, I realized that I could kinda control which I was, though not at first. When it first started happening, I was just trying to get away from something that kinda spooked me, so I used my Acid Armor to dissolve into water after I jumped into a river. When I came back out of it on dry land and retook natural form, I accidentally forgot to "remember my gender", so I came out without one. Can you say panic attack? I eventually thought that if I used Acid Armor again, that would fix me, but I came out the wrong gender again, this time female. I think it took me a week just to get back to male. Maybe less? I was so nervous that I just lost track of time. Well, after that heart attack, I started getting... understandably curious. So, I played around with changing it and eventually figured out that I needed to be thinking of the right gender to be that gender. Otherwise, it would either be that I had none or was the first gender that popleo'd up into my mind. As time went on, I tried to even control aspects of my appearance so that the transformation was more defined and obvious..." He shrugged his shoulders and made a rolling gesture with a paw while sighing through a disheartened half frown. "Buuut I think you can tell how that went. It's still every bit a work in progress. You had problems telling which gender I am, after all."

My stare became more intense and I was understandably uncomfortable. I started thinking about how much of a horror that would have been if I came out a guy every time I teleported myself. Then, with sweat rolling my nervously grinning face, I asked, "A-are all.. vaporeon like this?"

"No," answered Neloe as Alex was opening his mouth. He made an irritated smirk, narrowing his eyes at her. She just stuck her tongue at him and rolled her own, then went on to tell me this. "Normal Vaporeons have no problems keeping their genders clear, effortlessly. Acid armor or not, every vaporeon other than Alex could keep their forms, to the most obscure of details. Alex specifically is the only Vaporeon I've met- not speaking for volume since I've only met 5- that has ever had this issue."

With a huff, she held her forehead, frowning. "And it CONSTANTLY confounds me! I just can NOT keep track of which they are half the time. I myself would very much like to know how this is possible, but I have no way of finding out."

The use of the pronoun "they" seemed misplaced, being that it described only Alex. I cocked my brow at it. "I'm sorry, but 'they?' Alex is just one person."

Alex smirked and poked his nose into the air. "She says that so that she doesn't have to keep track~."

Neloe nodded as she rubbed her face down with her hand, before letting it fall back to her side as she looked at me. "They has two meanings. It can be used for a many or it can be used for one, usually used in this way when the one is an unknown or unspecified something, Alex's case half the time with me."

"They" started to make sense to me, when the two of them explained it like that. So, in light of that, I decided to adopt the usage as well- as I will from this moment on while describing Alex in the gender pronouns. I nodded my head. "Okay then. They it is for me as well, otherwise I don't think I'm going to be able to keep up, either."

Alex and Neloe both smiled, but Alex was the one to pipe up, smile turning smirk with sultry eyes. "Don't worry about it too much. I'll eventually decide what gender I like best~." "Maybe," they added under their breath.

I could feel the sweat just dripping down my temple with my nervous frown. "I heard that..."

The ribbon clothed Audino stepped up to me and Aria with a hum and neutral expression. "I don't suppose you need me to ask this, but will you be staying? You should think about doing so for at least the amount of time it will take for your arm to heal."

My gaze trailed over to Aria, who had this pleading smile and Rockruff eyes.

As much as I wanted to leave straight away and find the humans I needed to confront, I could admit with a sigh and the bowing of my head that I had no idea where to begin. It was unavoidable, though. I would have closure to at least that. Looking over my one good arm, my eyes bored into it for a good moment or two. My thoughts? Whatever the case, they needed to be "held responsible" for their work.

I looked up from my arm and back to Neloe, narrowing my eyes and nodding. "Fine. I can at least wait for this arm to heal, but no longer than that. You won't agree with me. I get that..." I leered to the side with my eyes alone. "But the ones that got away need to pay for not only what they did to me, but what they did to my mother and all those other pokemon they killed. I won't be satisfied until then."

Of course the Audino shook her head, closing her eyes. The vaporeon seemed to blink in both concern of the tone shift and confusion. And so, Neloe spoke in a low tone. "It's your business what you do when that time comes. However..." She looked at me with a dead serious stare. "Do you TRULY believe that? Will it really help anything in the end? You still won't have anything they stole away from you. I don't claim anything on your scale, but I've gotten my own revenge a few times. It didn't really feel like a victory after the day passed."

Her words stirred something in my stomach as I made a low groan... I didn't give her any answer, instead shaking my head of the feeling, trying to hide it through a strong glare. "So, we'll be staying in the cave with the both of you, right?"

That frustrated her as she spoke, eyes opening as she took a step toward me. "That's no-"

"That's a pository~!" Alex interrupted her as she snapped her head over to them, appalled and glaring with her lips pursed. They smiled and raised a paw. "Just let it go. Stubborn doesn't beat stubborn, ya know."

"Oh I'll beat YOU with stubbo-"

Clearing their throat and quickly looking over at us, the vaporeon waved us over. "WELL! Care to go back to the cave for now? I might show you two around some of my favorite places when we've eaten something."

I couldn't help but grin a bit, seeing as the "guy" had bailed us out of lip flapping sessions with his friend.

And so that little intercession brought us all to walk back into the forest for the cave. I stopped there in the bushes while the others went on... I turned around and looked over the lake with an uncertain feeling in the pit of my belly. As I looked around, it felt like there were eyes looking on at us from somewhere... but where?

... Eventually, my eyes locked onto the waterfall and watched it's far off display of power. However, what I was in true awe of was the fact that the lake taking all of it's raging waters was not flooding over. I don't know where the thought came from, but it eventually struck me that this image seemed almost... like a metaphor.

The waters raged on, but the great lake ever stayed the same, never flooding over. I'm sure that if you think about it long enough, it's easy to see the metaphor. Regardless, that's your only answer for now, wrong or right.

After my staring contest with the waters, I turned away and walked off into the forest, following behind the strange friends I'd come to make...

... There were questions you wanted to ask that I wasn't really leaving time for. I've been talking for a while, so maybe it's a good time to ask them.

... Why? Well, I didn't really have much choice. A sprain can be pretty terrible to deal with, even if I don't use the arm. It'll still hurt if I'm doing something too crazy or doing something that would make me move it, unconsciously.

... Yeah, I didn't much understand it either. Alex just seemed like they liked to mess with people, back then, though there was a good and pure reason for it. I'll tell you about it when we get there. It took me a good while before I fully understood... or even accepted that there were guys like them.

... I don't understand the question. ... ... ... I don't think I can really answer that. Me and her... ... ... Let's wait for that one, too. Honestly, I'm not sure, myself...

... ... ... Do I miss my mother...? ... Well, yeah. In ways more than others. I know I've said it more than I've given you straight answers, but you won't understand what I said until we can get to that part. ... ... ... It's a bit too complicated not to explain in full and I don't want to break my own continuity. This has been helping me just as much as educating you, if that makes sense.

... Hah. Yes, you would. They're still out there. Them and the other you don't know about, yet. I've just not been around them for a ... well, good long while. A few weeks, at most. I have my reasons for that.

Thoooough, you might want a translator. You won't be understanding them much yourself if you're without one, obviously.

... Understand them, huh? Well, I can't understand EVERY pokemon. I can only understand the ones that... Well... How to put this... If a pokemon can say their "name", then I will be able to understand them. If they can't, well... It's every bit because they are either a wild animal or speaking a very different sort of language. There are exceptions, but most have issues.

For instance: If I tried to talk to a legendary bird, there is definitely gonna be a problem. I can't understand the ancient language they speak. It's part of the reason so many legendaries have issues with trespassing pokemon, though not every legendary speaks that language. Mallory is a perfect example of how the language is starting to fall out. So is Aria, who never even learned it.

I can't understand Onyx, either. I don't think many know this, but they speak no language. They're loyal and intelligent, but can't. Rock jaws will do that. They CAN understand them, though.

Better watch what you say, too. They have tempers. Think Beedrills but slightly longer.

... No difference. Steelix are just as nasty, if not worse.

Any other questions?

... ... ... Hah. I knew you'd ask. A pokemon doesn't evolve by merely aging. A ralts can go it's whole life- long time to do this, but possible- without ever evolving, if it doesn't get significantly stronger. And the answer to why I haven't evolved...? I have no idea... I think that part of me is just broken. Besides... What the heck would I become if I did? Definitely not a kirlia.

Whatever the case, I don't mind if it doesn't happen. This was enough to get comfortable with.

... I think that's enough, for now. Let's take a break for today. We'll start again, tomorrow...

 _ **And now, we are all caught up.**_

 _ **Well. I think it's fair to speak about my plans to continue this story and my other two. I don't plan on stopping here or where I did in Megaman Y or Sonic is Gone.**_

 _ **I will alternate between these three stories until I reach each of their conclusions. This story has had it's hiatus over on DeviantArt, but as there is still one more chapter I'd like to get done on Megaman Y's side, that comes foremost. It's a big one and might be split up into two parts, even though I don't like to split events. It's just too big.**_

 _ **As for Sonic is Gone, it too has had a long hiatus, I admit. Thing about it is that I already know exactly where the story will go. I know the ending. It's not hard to imagine, either. However, it's the in between that I'm not so certain about. In ways, I want to just keep exploring the world left to Tails and co, but I know all too well that the end will happen sooner than much of that can happen. Fact is that this story ends when Tails finds what he's looking for. However, Tails isn't all who matter. That wouldn't seem right. There are many characters to know and understand. Many sides of this story that can't be seen if they are not observed. After the next chapter of that story, that will be where focus shifts. Question is "who" and "how". That may become it's own collection of sidestories if it spans too long in the planning process.**_

 _ **All that said, there are many ideas that can be used in this very story- by which I mean "What I Am." Of course the main focus is Fate and what she will do. However, there are now a few characters involved. Yet another story with many characters to explore. The question here is "what to explore?" And there is also, "is it important enough?" And that brings about conflict and sidestory possibilities.**_

 _ **And that is what all have been constantly on my mind. I don't want to just write something that literally has nothing to do with the main story and put it in with the many chapters. That's filler and barely anyone wants THAT. I know I wouldn't. So. While there are interesting ideas to explore with the characters, they might just belong in aforementioned collections of sidestories more than cluttering the chapters of the main story.**_

 _ **I guess that me saying that is like me saying that definitely will happen. :-)**_

 _ **But this has all been a ramble-on. Still. I thought it best to let you all know.**_

 _ **I hope this all has been informative in some ways.**_

 _ **And regardless of any of this, thank you all for reading! ^^ I truly do love writing these fanfictions.**_


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